Thorazine; the pill that dismantled an institution.
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- Due to the advancements made with the drug Thorazine in the 1950s, the pill helped with hallucinations, anxiety, and violent behaviors. Therefore, the need for giant asylums was no longer ideal. In 1996, Kings Park Psychiaric Center was claimed abandoned, ending the facility’s 111 year run.
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- 2. Building 93, a 13-story structure whose design was strikingly similar to what it had sought to avoid. At its peak in the 1950s, Kings Park reached a population of over 9,000 residents, who were divided by gender, age, temperament, and physical limitations.
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- 3. Another angle of Building 93 to show the brutaliste architecture modeled after skyscrapers built in Manhattan in the early 1900s
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- 4. Building 90, utilized for nurses to learn procedures and also served as a dormitory for the students.
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- 5. Outside of Building 93 which has been fenced off to the public
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- 6. A look inside one of the wings behind Building 93
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- 7. Outside of Building 94 which has been completely sealed and boarded up
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- 8. a look into Building 94 which was used to wash contaminated clothing and bed spreads
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- 9. Inside of Building 21, which served as a residence hall for patients that included seclusion rooms.
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- 10. A cot turned upside down inside of Building 93
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- 11. The remains of a finer quality chair that would’ve only been utilized by doctors, nurses or others with authority.
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- 12. A fridge inside the ruins of an office
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- 13. Basement of Building 7, underneath a loading dock where dead bodies would be transported to bring inside of the morgue that was constructed within the building.
1. (cover photo)
Mental illness in the 1800s was stigmatized and handled extremely different than it is today. Those suffering from both mental and physical disabilities were contained in asylums and hospitals hidden from the general public. In 1885, Kings Park Psychiatric Center was established to help relieve the amount of patients being admitted to hospitals in Brooklyn.
Throughout its history, Kings Park was significant for being on the cutting edge of psychological science, cementing its place in history as an early adopter and advocate of a sequence of new procedures and medications that eventually led to the institution’s decline. Shock therapies and lobotomies were performed daily on patients who had no right to give or deny consent for these procedures once admitted to the asylum.
The development of effective antipsychotic medication in the mid-1950s signaled the decline of these extreme measures and the institution system as a whole. For the first time, residents once considered hopeless were able to manage their mental illness and live independently. This led to a dramatic shift in institutions across the country from severe overcrowding to near-abandonment as a trend of deinstitutionalization swept through America into the 80s and 90s.
Due to the advancements made with the drug Thorazine, which helped with hallucinations, anxiety, and violent behaviors, the need for giant asylums was no longer ideal. In 1996, Kings Park Psychiaric Center was claimed abandoned, ending the facility’s 111 year run.
2. Building 93, a 13-story structure whose design was strikingly similar to what it had sought to avoid. At its peak in the 1950s, Kings Park reached a population of over 9,000 residents, who were divided by gender, age, temperament, and physical limitations.
3. Another angle of Building 93 to show the brutaliste architecture modeled after skyscrapers built in Manhattan in the early 1900s
4. Building 90, utilized for nurses to learn procedures and also served as a dormitory for the students.
5. Outside of Building 93 which has been fenced off to the public
6. A look inside one of the wings behind Building 93
7. Outside of Building 94 which has been completely sealed and boarded up
8. a look into Building 94 which was used to wash contaminated clothing and bed spreads
9. Inside of Building 21, which served as a residence hall for patients that included seclusion rooms in isolation.
10. A cot turned upside down inside of Building 93
11. The remains of a finer quality chair that would’ve only been utilized by doctors, nurses or others with authority.
12. A fridge inside the ruins of an office
13. Basement of Building 7, underneath a loading dock where dead bodies would be transported to bring inside of the morgue that was constructed within the building.
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