Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital (also known as Greystone Psychiatric Park, Greystone Psychiatric Hospital, or simply Greystone and formerly known as the State Asylum for the Insane at Morristown, New Jersey State Hospital, Morris Plains, and Morris Plains State Hospital) refers to a former psychiatric hospital and the building it occupied in Morris Plains, New Jersey. The facility was built in 1876 to alleviate overcrowding at the state's only other "lunatic asylum", in Trenton, New Jersey.
Built to accommodate 350 patients, the hospital was expanded several times, and at its peak housed more than 7,700 people in overcrowded conditions. In 2008, it was ordered to be closed as a result of deteriorating conditions and overcrowding. A new facility was built nearby on the Greystone campus. Despite considerable public opposition and media attention, demolition of the main Kirkbride building began in April 2015 and was completed by October 2015.
History
Early years The idea for such a facility was conceived in the early 1870s at the persistent lobbying of Dorothea Dix, a nurse who was an advocate for better health care for people with mental illnesses. At that time in history, New Jersey's state-funded mental health facilities were exceedingly overcrowded and worse than those of neighboring states that had more facilities and room to house patients. Greystone was built, all of it, in part to relieve the only – and severely overcrowded – "lunatic asylum" in the state, which was located in Trenton, New Jersey. Because of her efforts, the New Jersey Legislature appropriated $2.5 million to obtain about of land for New Jersey's second "lunatic asylum". Great care was taken to select a location central to the majority of New Jersey's population. After visiting about 42 locations, officials approved purchase of a portion of a few farms and lots, on August 28, 1881, near Morristown and a short distance from the Morris and Essex Railroad. The plots of land contained fertile soil, rock quarries for mining stone, a sand pit for building materials and reservoirs for water and ice access. The new asylum, when completed, would hold approximately 600 patients, with the large main building to be completed in sections as usage detailed. The plan of the main building was drafted to allow for a total of 40 wards split into two wings, one wing for each sex. There was to be no communication between wards. The corridors served a purpose other than just separating wards: they provided for fire protection, so that a fire would be unable to spread past a single section of the building. Upper floors in the center section contained apartments for employees, and the third story contained the amusement room and chapel for patients. Samuel Sloan was named architect of the main building and its smaller supporting buildings. Sloan chose to follow the Kirkbride Plan, a list of ideals pertaining to hospital design created by Thomas Story Kirkbride. There would be a center section for administrative purposes, then a wing on each side with three wards on a floor. Each ward would be set back from the previous one to allow patients to take in the beautiful grounds from their wards. Each ward was designed to accommodate 20 patients, with a dining room, exercise room and activity room. The wards were furnished with the highest quality materials such as wool rugs, pianos and fresh flowers.
Patients worked on the farms growing and raising food and performed hard labor tasks in the clearing away of building debris, excavating for roads, and sodding grounds. The plan of the institution called for carriage drives ending at all doorways, and a central road leading up to the front entrance flanked by trees on both sides. Grounds on both sides of the wings would provide for simultaneous exercise of both sexes while keeping them separate. An industrial building opened in 1894, allowing for more jobs for patients than just manual labor jobs in farming or groundworks. It was a widely popular belief that putting the insane to work in certain circumstances was beneficial both to the patient and the institution. Those who were chronically ill, restless in the day and night, were thought to be aided in their general well-being by working out some of the oversupply of blood to the brain. Within the walls of the new building, male patients were able to make brooms, rugs, brushes, carpets, and do printing and bookmaking.
By 1895, the State Lunatic Asylum was operating at 365 patients over capacity. The overcrowding was a major health and cleanliness issue, resulting in a small outbreak of typhoid fever, eventually blamed on the water supply. The passing of years brought no relief for a bursting hospital, occupied with 1,189 patients bedded down in an institution meant to hold only 800 every night. Cots were placed in activity rooms, exercise halls and hallways in order to try to find sleeping arrangements for all. "From a sanitary point of view these cots are an abomination," declared the board of managers. Cots were set up and taken down on a daily basis on the hallways, and were not able to be cleaned between uses. Patients often soiled themselves during the night, and the cots were simply handed out again the following evening.
The asylum scrambled to create more housing. By 1901, the new dormitory building was completed and quickly filled, slightly easing crowding issues. Patients were once again able to be grouped according to disease classification and had access to exercise and activity rooms again. The new dormitory building would gain infirmaries and operating rooms in the coming years, as well as a bowling alley which was extremely popular among patients and staff during the winter months when outdoor exercise was not an option. By 1903, the hospital had crossed over the 1,500-patient mark, continuing its steady climb. Once again, the numbers were an issue.
A state-of-the-art electroconvulsive therapy room was installed in the main building, and the women's wing of the dormitory received a hydrotherapy room. Medical Director Britton D. Evans described this new treatment in his report in 1961, writing, "It is well recognized that the application of water at varying degrees of temperature and pressure exerts influences of a valuable therapeutic character upon the entire human economy and aids the recuperative powers of the body." Female patients were able to receive treatment for their afflictions through use of douches, massages, and hot air cabinets. A hydrotherapeutic treatment room for male patients was opened the following year.
By 1911, the newly renamed State Asylum at Morris Plains held 2,672 patients, and cots were once again placed in corridors and activity rooms. A photographic department was established and began documenting patients in hopes of cataloging facial expressions and characteristics which go with certain mental disorders. A dental clinic opened for treatment of teeth ailments. A tuberculosis pavilion was finished and occupied the following year, as well as a new larger fire department house, and enlargements to the greenhouse and piggery. In 1916, women began participating in sewing and arts and crafts on the top floor of the Industrial Building, and a small patient library was founded with 184 volumes of books. Annexes to the Dormitory building opened in 1817 to provide more space for housing. The next few years saw much progress in the department of building construction. The Voorhees Cottage and Knight Cottage were opened as homes for nurses, as well as cottages for senior physicians and the superintendent. The Psychiatric Clinic Reception Building opened in 1923 and all operating rooms, laboratories and x-ray equipment were moved to the new building. A Social Service Department was instituted, in charge of letting patients out for "trial" visits to help them assimilate back into the real world. Parts of the hospital are set aside of "War Risk Patients" or veterans from World War I suffering from various mental diseases, including the yet-to-be-named post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The hospital was given with its modern-day name, Greystone Park Psychiatric Center, in 1924. The new reception building, dubbed the Curry Building after Medical Superintendent Marcus Curry, opened in 1928, as well as a new fire station, power plant, greenhouse, and auxiliary buildings. The Men's Occupational Therapy Building opened that same year, allowing for patients to take on new duties in service to the hospital such as tailoring and woodworking. 1929 and 1931 proved to very trying times for Greystone. In the two-year span, three fires severely handicapped the institution's ability to treat the mentally ill. The most devastating of the three fires, on November 26, 1931, was ruled to have originated from faulty electrical wiring on the sixth floor of the center section. Some patients were tied to trees with fireman's ropes to prevent escape after evacuation. The fourth floor north wards were destroyed as well as the central tower. Once rebuilt, the fourth floor in the north wards never matched the rest of the hospital in construction and style again. The state of New Jersey opened the Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital in 1931, and patients were transferred over the next few years down to the new hospital to help with overcrowding issues. However, Greystone officials were faced with a new problem: patients transferred to Marlboro had to pass a series of tests, and often the most able-bodied patients were removed from the campus, leaving older or more seriously ill patients behind. A change in the population began, and there was a shortage of patients capable of work or occupational therapy. Some of this need was filled by working men brought in by the state through the WPA program and other similar programs starting around 1935.
Modern era
late 20th century The 1970s and 1980s saw a redirection in mental health towards deinstitutionalization. States around the country decided that mental health patients were better off living in the home with their families and being treated by the community than staying in removed surroundings in a hospital for a long-term stay. Two factors caused this sudden change. New psychological drugs were able to control patients much more effectively than previous methods ever could, and suddenly dangerous patients were capable of existing in the community in a less harmful state. Secondly, laws were passed in the 1970s forbidding patients to work unless paid fairly, which meant at least minimum wage. Suddenly hospital costs skyrocketed, as patients were no longer able to work in order to defray fees.
Due to the landmark Doe vs. Klein case in 1974, Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital was forced to build community homes for patients to provide halfway house type living situations, and adequate staffing and patient care was required of the institution. Twenty "independent living" cottages opened in 1982 and by 1988 all patients had been moved out of living in the main Kirkbride building, and the wings were basically abandoned. Now only the center section was used for administrative purposes. Students of Drew University led an effort to try to get Greystone Park Psychiatric Center listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but were turned down. The Register claimed that the study submitted focused too much on the Kirkbride building, and that they wanted to see the entire hospital system submitted as a National Historic District. However, one student did manage to get the gas house placed on the Register.