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Posted by: rs on 3/20/1998@20:55hrs:
In Reply to: Re: willowbrook state school and the new college campus posted by: art anderson on 3/20/1998@17:39hrs:
When I was a student at Curtis (Class of '58) some of my friends and classmates lived at Willowbrook. There parents were psychiatrists and administrators there. Mike Lazar and Arna Schiller are two classmates in this category who I remember. I would visit Mike and his brothers and swim in the pool and the gym and go to their home on the grounds. Other friends worked as counselors to the patients who were very severely retarded, to use the then-current word. There was a carousel and you would see patients in groups walking to and from the carousel, riding on it, etc. The counselors treated the patients roughly, sometimes, I was told, apparently because reasoning with the patients was out of the question. One friend's parents had patients as housemaids. I expressed surprise and was told that a person with the mental age of a ten or twelve year old could do many things capably aroung a home, such as clean and help with chores, in the kitchen, etc. I guess it helped the patient, most of whom were there for life, feel appreciated.
Then one day an aspiring journalist came to Willowbrook with a camera crew, got into the buildings, and began to film the conditions, and how patients were treated. There had been some terrible incidents, such as scaldings in the showers from overheated water, inattentive, or worse staff, and virtually helpless patients.
When the show aired, it was a scandal. It also helped to make the name and career of the young reporter who tracked the story down and went into a place that many people feared to go, a mental institution housing hundreds of patients who were frightening to look at, until you became used to them from the pool and the gym and at a friend's house.
The journalist's name is Geraldo Rivera.
The hospital buildings, incidentally, which were of red brick, were connected by wooden, above-ground, structures that allowed travel between the buildings in rain, snow, and wind. These dated from the war, when Halloran Hospital treated the soldiers wounded in the war (WWII).
The notable architectural feature, in addition to the red brick buildings set in lovely open green meadow next to a sizable park with trees, ballfield, picnic grounds, and a pond, was the tall tower. Was this a chimney? I don't recall, but it was the tallest thing around.
I spent many family picnics at Willowbrook as a kid, playing softball with the dads and kids, scouts, etc.
I assume the wooden connectors between the buildings are long gone. I wonder what the campus looks like.
Bob
PS Nice to see you back, Raina. BTW, what did you find down at the SI Institute of Arts and Science? Anything good?