Pilgrim Psychiatric Center

This place is on private property. Listing for informational purposes only. Please do not visit without express permission from the land owner.

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. It's size has never been exceeded by any other facility, though it's now far smaller than it once was.

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, Kings Park State Hospital, (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.

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 the 1950s 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 and 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.

Allen Ginsberg's mother, Naomi Livergant Ginsberg, who suffered with schizophrenia throughout most of her life, died at Pilgrim State Hospital in 1956. "Pilgrim 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. One of Andre'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.