Willowbrook State School

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History[edit]

Construction and early conversion[edit]

In 1938, plans were drawn up to build a facility for intellectually disabled children on a 375 acres (152 ha) site in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island. Construction was completed in 1942, but instead of opening for its original purpose, it was converted into a United States Army hospital and named Halloran General Hospital, after the late Colonel Paul Stacey Halloran. After World War II, proposals were introduced to turn the site over to the Veterans Administration, but in October 1947, the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene opened its facility there as originally planned, and the institution was named Willowbrook State School.

Hepatitis studies[edit]

Throughout the first decade of its operation, outbreaks of hepatitis, primarily hepatitis A, were common at the school. This led to a controversial medical study carried out there between the mid-1950s up to the 1970s by medical researchers Saul Krugman and Robert W. McCollum, who monitored to gauge the effects of gamma globulin in combating it.^[3] A public outcry forced the study to be discontinued.

More scandals and abuses[edit]

By 1965, Willowbrook housed over 6,000 mentally disabled children, despite having a maximum capacity of 4,000. Senator Robert Kennedy toured the institution in 1965 and proclaimed that individuals in the overcrowded facility were "living in filth and dirt, their clothing in rags, in rooms less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in a zoo" and offered a series of recommendations for improving conditions.^[4] Although the hepatitis study had been discontinued, the residential school's reputation was that of a warehouse for New York City's mentally disabled children, many of whom were presumably abandoned there by their families, foster care agencies or other systems designed to care for them. Donna J. Stone, an advocate for mentally disabled children as well as victims of child abuse, gained access to the school by posing as a recent social work graduate. She then shared her observations with members of the press.^[5]

A series of articles in local newspapers, including the Staten Island Advance and the Staten Island Register, described the crowded, filthy living conditions at Willowbrook, and the negligent treatment of some of its residents. Shortly thereafter, in early 1972, Geraldo Rivera, then an investigative reporter for WABC-TV in New York, conducted a series of investigations at Willowbrook uncovering a host of deplorable conditions, including overcrowding, inadequate sanitary facilities, and physical and sexual abuse of residents by members of the school's staff. The exposé, entitled Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace,^[6] garnered national attention and won a Peabody Award for Rivera.^[7] Rivera later appeared on the nationally televised Dick Cavett Show with film of patients at the school.

As a result of the overcrowding, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the State of New York in federal court on March 17, 1972. A settlement in the case was reached on May 5, 1975, mandating reforms at the site, but several years would pass before all of the violations were corrected. The publicity generated by the case was a major contributing factor to the passage of a federal law, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980.

Closing the school[edit]

In 1975, a Willowbrook Consent Decree was signed that committed New York state to improve community placement for the now designated "Willowbrook Class."^[8]

In 1983, the state of New York announced plans to close Willowbrook, which had been renamed the Staten Island Developmental Center in 1974. By the end of March 1986, the number of residents housed there had dwindled to 250, and the last children left the grounds on September 17, 1987.

After the developmental center closed, the site became the focus of intense local debate about what should be done with the property. In 1989 a portion of the land was acquired by the city of New York, with the intent of using it to establish a new campus for the College of Staten Island, and the new campus opened at Willowbrook in 1993. At 0.8 acres (0.32 ha), this campus is the largest maintained by the City University of New York.

Within the year, one of CSI's two other existing campuses, located in the Sunnyside neighborhood, was closed, renovated, and reopened in 1995 as the home of a new K-12 Michael J. Petrides School.

The remaining 0.7 km² (170 acres) of the state school's original property, at the south end, is still under the administration of the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), an agency of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, and houses the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities and the Staten Island Developmental Disabilities Services Office.

On February 25, 1987, the Federal Court approved the Willowbrook "1987 Stipulation", which set forth guidelines that required OMRDD community placement for the "Willowbrook Class".^[8] Significant members of the "Willowbrook Class" were not as intellectually limited as the term "developmental delay" would indicate. Cerebral Palsy, a developmental disability that can be accompanied by varying degrees of intellectual impairment, but some members of this class were cognitively quite intact, yet unable to communicate verbally due to their physical condition. These ex-residents of Willowbrook, many now in their 50's and 60's, live in a variety of community residences and attend day programs throughout New York State, under the care of organizations such as United Cerebral Palsy or the Jewish Guild for the Blind.

Aftermath[edit]

In 1997, Danny Aiello hosted and Geraldo Rivera served as commentator for a 57-minute documentary titled Unforgotten: 25 Years After Willowbrook (alternate title: Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook), which revisits Staten Island's Willowbrook State School, "remembering the over 5,000 children who were living in the facility at the time and focusing on three former residents, to see how the effects of the institution have been felt by families and friends of patients as well."^[9] Writes The New York Times reviewer, Stephen Holden: "As graphically as it recounts the horrors of the past, Unforgotten is less concerned with raking the coals of an old scandal than with showing how the treatment of the mentally disabled has since improved. The film [...] focuses on the lives of two who were once incarcerated at Willowbrook but subsequently flourished in group homes situated in close proximity to their families. / A third longtime resident of Willowbrook, Bernard Carabello, is also interviewed. Mr. Carabello, who suffers from cerebral palsy, spent 18 years at Willowbrook after being misdiagnosed as mentally retarded at the age of 3. / In looking at the lives of Patty Ann Meskell and Luis Rivera (who died shortly after the film was completed), both of whom spent many years at Willowbrook, the movie stresses their essential humanity. Each is shown interacting with loving family members who are still deeply stung by memories of visits to Willowbrook more than 25 years ago. / The film, narrated by Danny Aiello, isn't so much an investigative documentary as a blunt plea for the humane treatment of the mentally retarded. It also warns that despite changes in social attitudes (the Special Olympics are cited as a shining example of progress), Willowbrook could happen again. Remembrance is a vital key to the prevention of future abuse."^[10][11]

In March, 2009, a fire in a residence in upstate Wells, New York, killed four members of the "Willowbrook Class".^[12]

Miscellaneous[edit]

Willowbrook State Hospital is mentioned in the documentary movie Cropsey (2009), as having reportedly housed convicted child kidnapper Andre Rand, who had previously worked there as an orderly.^[13] One of Rand's supposed 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.

In 2011, a former resident of Willowbrook State School, a savant named Anthony Torrone, wrote a Christian prayer book titled Anthony's Prayers that was inspired by his time and the abuse he experienced at the school.^[14][15]

In his 1991 book, The Soul of a Cop, retired NYPD Detective Paul Ragonese describes responding to "building two" of the abandoned Willowbrook campus as a member of the NYPD Bomb Squad. Ragonese describes an abandoned building full of hazardous chemicals, including explosive picric acid crystals, along with rooms full of jars containing specimens of human organs. Ragonese goes on to write that the incident was largely covered up by local officials.^[16]

See also[edit]

	New York City portal
	New York portal

• Developmental disability
• Human experimentation in the United States
• Summit Children's Residence Center
• The Ladd School
• Trenton Psychiatric Hospital
• Tuskegee Syphilis Study
• Walter E. Fernald State School

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Grossman, Joel B. (Winter 1987). "Beyond the Willowbrook Wars: The Courts and Institutional Reform". American Bar Foundation Research Journal 12 (1): 249–259. doi:10.1111/j.1747-4469.1987.tb00536.x. 
• Klein, Joel (February 4, 1985). "The Lawyers' Plot". New Republic 192 (5): 28. 
• Peele, Roger (September 1, 1985). "The Willowbrook Wars". The American Journal of Psychiatry 142 (1111-a-1112). 
• Rothman, David J.; Rothman, Sheila M. (October 1984). The Willowbrook Wars. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-015234-5. 

Coordinates: 40°35′58″N 74°09′02″W / 40.59944°N 74.15056°W / 40.59944; -74.15056

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