The Central Islip Psychiatric
Center started out as a Farm Colony for New York City in 1889.
The patients were transferred from the crowded city asylums on
Wards, Hart, and Blackwell Island.
Eventually the asylum was taken over by the state
and was renamed the Manhattan State Hospital. The campus consisted
of 1000 acres and was the largest asylum by land area. It had
over 100 buildings, most notably a set of 4 groups all connected
via corridors that stretched a mile long. That was called the
string of pearls, referring to its length and the quality of the
buildings design.
Therapy consisted in working in the farms or one
of the many shops. The center had two rail spurs to serve the
main power plant (north colony) and the string of pearls (south
colony) and even had its own steam engine. Visitors would also
arrive by train and the hospital had its own passenger station.
As with other asylums deinstitutionalization became
a trend after the 1970s and by the 1980s the population was dwindling.
The state sold much of the property with the buildings to New
York Institute of Technology and a developer. The college reused
a group of the former psychiatric center for dorms and classrooms.
The string of pearls was torn down to make way for a shopping
center and industrial park. At this time the hospital was only
housing geriatric patients and those with serious physical ailments.
By 1996 the then called Central Islip Psychiatric Center was fully
dissolved and remaining patients were transferred to Pilgrim. |
