Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, formerly known as Pilgrim State Hospital, is a state-run psychiatric hospital located in Brentwood, New York. At the time it opened, it was the largest hospital of any kind in the world [1]. Its size has never been exceeded by any other facility, though it's now far smaller than it once was.
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By 1900 overcrowding in New York City's psychiatric asylums had become a serious problem. There were several strategies implemented to deal with the escalating patient overload. One was to put the patients to work, farming in a relaxed setting on what was then rural Long Island. The new state hospitals were dubbed "farm colonies" because of their live-and-work treatment programs and emphasis on agriculture. However, these farm colonies as well as other psychiatric institutions, such as Kings Park State Hospital, which was later named Kings Park Psychiatric Center and Central Islip State Hospital (later named Central Islip Psychiatric Center), became overcrowded, like the institutions they were meant to replace.
NY state began making plans for a third farm colony, which was to become Pilgrim State Hospital, named in honor of the former New York State Commissioner of Mental Health, Dr. Charles W. Pilgrim. The state bought approximately 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of land in Brentwood and began construction on the hospital in 1930. Pilgrim State 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, swine farm, church, cemetery and water tower, as well as houses for staff and administrators. A series of underground tunnels were used for transporting food from the kitchens to the buildings, as well as housing steam pipes. Each set of buildings were known as quads, a pattern of four buildings situated around a center building, where the kitchen was located.
The hospital continued 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 facility that was a subsidiary of Pilgrim State Hospital. In fact, Pilgrim State Hospital was so large that it reached into four Suffolk towns: Huntington, Babylon, Smithtown and Islip, and had two state roads passing through its bounds.
During World War II, the War Department took control of Edgewood State Hospital, along with three new buildings at Pilgrim State Hospital, buildings 81, 82, and 83. The War Department constructed numerous temporary structures and renamed Edgewood State Hospital and buildings 81-83 "Mason General Hospital," a psychiatric hospital devoted to treating battle-traumatized soldiers. Renowned filmmaker John Huston, who received a special commission in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, made a documentary at Mason General Hospital called "Let There Be Light", which showed the effects of war on mental health. The film sparked a controversy and was not seen by the public until 1981.
After World War II, Pilgrim State Hospital experienced an increase in patient population that made it the world's largest hospital, with 13,875 patients and over 4,000 employees. In fact, at one time it was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest mental hospital in the world. In the 1950's more aggressive treatments, such as lobotomy and electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) were implemented. The best known controversy about this surrounded the case of Beulah Jones, a patient there between 1952-1972 who received both such treatments and was left seriously impaired. However, Pilgrim State Hospital and the other state hospitals began to decline shortly afterwards with the advent of pharmaceutical alternatives to institutionalization.
Dr. Henry Brill served as the director of Pilgrim from 1958 to 1974 and presided over both the introduction of the new anti-psychotic medications and the large numbers of discharges related to good response to these medications.
As psychiatric medication and community care became an increasingly viable alternative to institutionalization, large mental institutions began to decline. Edgewood, the last psychiatric hospital to be built on Long Island, closed its doors in December, 1971, following decentralization. Kings Park and Central Islip State Hospital remained open, while slowly downsizing. During this time Pilgrim State Hospital and parts of the campus began to close, continuing to downsize into the 1970s and 1980s. Buildings 81-83 were briefly used as a correctional facility in the 1980s, but after community protest they reverted back to psychiatric use. In the early 1990s, with declining patient populations in the three remaining hospitals, the New York State Office of Mental Health (formerly the Department of Mental Hygiene) began making plans to re-organize the Long Island hospitals, which were implemented in the fall of 1996, when Kings Park and Central Islip State Hospital were closed, and the remaining patients from those facilities were transferred to Pilgrim State Hospital. Parts of Central Islip Psychiatric Center became a campus for the New York Institute of Technology, as well as a residential and commercial development. At Kings Park, three buildings housing community residences administered by Pilgrim remain open. Much of the former campus has become a state park, while the rest sits unused.
Today, the much smaller Pilgrim Psychiatric Center is the last of the state institutions still operating on Long Island. The farm was sold, the land developed, and it became the Western Campus of the Suffolk County Community College in 1974.
Gerald Wolkoff bought the property's 462 acres (1.87 km2) for $21 million in 2002 and announced a plan to build a $4 billion residential/office complex, called Heartland Town Center, on the site which borders his Heartland Business Park, which is to the west of the complex.[1][2] In preparation, several former hospital buildings were demolished, however, rebuilding has not yet begun. Other abandoned structures, like the former administration building, medical/surgical building, doctor's residences and utilities section remain, though plans have been made for their demolition.
Pilgrim Psychiatric Center hosts a museum, which displays items from Kings Park, Central Islip, Pilgrim, and Edgewood, such as photos, newsletters, relics from abandoned and demolished buildings, and other historical information.
Another proposed project for the site is the Pilgrim Intermodal Freight Transportation Center, which would be a facility for transloading freight from trains to trucks. It would be built on a 120-acre (0.49 km2) tract owned by the state and use a rail siding of the Long Island Rail Road that previously carried freight and visitors to the hospital.[3][4]
In 1985 the movie "Murder: By Reason of Insanity", starring Candice Bergen, was filmed on the grounds of Pilgrim State Hospital, in Building 14. This movie was based on Adam Berwid, who had murdered his wife on a Day Pass from the hospital. Staff working at the facility were able to audition for small roles. The case was also the subject of a 1980 segment of CBS's 60 Minutes.
Allen Ginsberg's mother, Naomi Livergant Ginsberg, who suffered with schizophrenia throughout most of her life, died at Pilgrim State Hospital in 1956. "Pilgim State" is mentioned in "Howl", which is widely considered among his greatest works.
Pilgrim State Hospital is mentioned in the 2009 documentary movie Cropsey, as having reportedly housed the mother of convicted child kidnapper Andre Rand.[5] One of Andre's victims, Jennifer Schweiger, was found buried in a shallow grave behind the grounds of the abandoned Willowbrook State School which was built under the same design as Pilgrim State Hospital.
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