Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Pilgrim State Hospital
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|Title= Harlem Valley State Hospital
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|Image= Harlem.jpg
 
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|Body= At the time it was opened, it was the largest hospital of any type in the world, its size has never been exceeded by any other facility, although today Pilgrim is far smaller than it used to be.
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|Body= One day after the incorporation of the Board of Managers, Harlem Valley State Hospital came into being. It opened on April 24th, 1924 "for the care and treatment of the insane" as part of an act to discontinue the farm and industrial prison at Wingdale. Buildings A, B and C had already been constructed at the State Road (Route 22) site and money was soon requested to buy adjoining farmland and buildings to build a root cellar, dairy barn, piggery and poultry house for 3000 chickens. With 24 patients admitted on August 11 from New York City and Long Island, the hospital was ready to become part of the history of Harlem Valley.
  
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By 1900, overcrowding in city asylums was becoming a major problem that many tried to resolve. One answer was to put the mentally ill to work farming in a relaxing setting on what was then rural Long Island. The new state hospitals were dubbed "Farm Colonies" because of their live-and-work treatment programs, agricultural focus and patient facilities. However, these farm colonies, the Kings Park State Hospital (later known as the Kings Park Psychiatric Center) and the Central Islip State Hospital (later known as the Central Islip Psychiatric Center), quickly became overcrowded, just like the earlier institutions they were supposed to replace.
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Between 1925 and 1929, the certified capacity of the new hospital rose from 250 to 1294. During that time, the Board of Managers, which, in later years, became the Board of Visitors, approved changing the course of the State Route 22 so that it would skirt most of the grounds instead of running directly through. By 1928 Buildings F and H were competed and Kitchen G was readied. In addition, tennis courts were built, physical culture classes were started and a baseball team for employees was organized. Then, by 1929 new staff quarters were completed and a switchboard was installed that served for 60 years. In the fall of the year, the School of Nursing, constructed in 1926, opened on September 23 with 14 enrolled.  [[Harlem Valley State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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NY state responded by making plans for a third so-called farm colony, what was to become the Pilgrim State Hospital, named in honor of the former New York State Commissioner of Mental Health, Dr. Charles W. Pilgrim. The state bought up approx. 1,000 acres (4.0 km²) of land in Brentwood and began construction in 1930. The hospital opened on October 1, 1931 as a close knit community with its own police and fire department, courts, post office, a LIRR station, power plant, potter's field, swinery, cemetery, water tower and houses for doctors, psychiatrists, and asylum administrators. A series of underground tunnels were used for routing steam pipes and other vital utilities.
 
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The hospital would continue to grow as the patient population increased. Eventually, the state of New York bought up more land to the southwest of the facility to construct Edgewood State Hospital, a short-lived stand-alone facility that operated under Pilgrim's umbrella. In fact, Pilgrim State was so large that it reached into four Suffolk townships- Huntington, Babylon, Smithtown and Islip- and had two major state roads passing through its bounds.  [[Pilgrim State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 03:25, 15 September 2019

Featured Article Of The Week

Harlem Valley State Hospital


Harlem.jpg

One day after the incorporation of the Board of Managers, Harlem Valley State Hospital came into being. It opened on April 24th, 1924 "for the care and treatment of the insane" as part of an act to discontinue the farm and industrial prison at Wingdale. Buildings A, B and C had already been constructed at the State Road (Route 22) site and money was soon requested to buy adjoining farmland and buildings to build a root cellar, dairy barn, piggery and poultry house for 3000 chickens. With 24 patients admitted on August 11 from New York City and Long Island, the hospital was ready to become part of the history of Harlem Valley.

Between 1925 and 1929, the certified capacity of the new hospital rose from 250 to 1294. During that time, the Board of Managers, which, in later years, became the Board of Visitors, approved changing the course of the State Route 22 so that it would skirt most of the grounds instead of running directly through. By 1928 Buildings F and H were competed and Kitchen G was readied. In addition, tennis courts were built, physical culture classes were started and a baseball team for employees was organized. Then, by 1929 new staff quarters were completed and a switchboard was installed that served for 60 years. In the fall of the year, the School of Nursing, constructed in 1926, opened on September 23 with 14 enrolled. Click here for more...

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