Today’s guest author is Denise K. Rago, known for her paranormal romance novels. Here she shares some history and photos of a haunted hospital near her home in Morris Plains, New Jersey.
"They
have stripped me of my madness,
that disease had sown and cultured,
They
have granted me the spirit
and the will to smile in healthy gladness,
When
I’d once frowned like a vulture,
in six months time on Greystone’s verdant
hill."
~
Richard Davis Comstock, patient at Greystone,
from his book Rhymes of a Raver, 1930 ~
I know it as Greystone Park,
a sprawling complex of buildings set on a massive hill smack in the middle of
suburbia. Samuel Sloan’s New Jersey Hospital for the Insane opened its doors on
August 17, 1877, to 342 patients to accommodate the overcrowded “lunatic asylum”
in Trenton, New Jersey.
Greystone Park is synonymous with the famous Kirkbride
building, built in the Second Empire Victorian style, and at 673,706 total
square feet it alleges to be the largest continuous foundation surpassed only
by that of the Pentagon built in 1943.
The State Hospital at Morris
Plains, ca. 1899, Morris Plains, New Jersey
“Courtesy of The Morristown
& Morris Township Library,
North Jersey Historical & Genealogy Center”
The Kirkbride Building
~ Photograph
taken by Denise K. Rago, 2013
Nestled in the lush green
hills of Morris Plains, New Jersey; Greystone sat on 743 acres. The plan for the main building called for 40
wards split into two wings, one to house men and the other for women with the
center wing housing administrative offices. New dormitories were built to
accommodate the inpatient population and the grounds spread to 1000 acres to
include staff housing, a chapel, a post office, fire and police stations, a
working farm, vocational and recreational facilities, ponds, a morgue stables
and greenhouses. The hospital had its own quarry as well as gas and water
utilities. A trolley line connected the
hospital with New Jersey Transit.
Photograph of the train depot
taken by
Denise K. Rago
In later years, tales of the
abuse and neglect of patients were synonymous with the institution but in the
nineteenth century the belief was that 70 to 90% of insanity cases were
curable, however the proper architecture was essential for the comfort,
security and recovery of the patients. Mental
illness had been attributed to demonic possession and moral weakness, however,
Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, a Pennsylvania
born Quaker, believed that the mentally ill could be treated and cured with
kindness and care in an environment designed to treat them.
Greystone was just the place,
complete with airy rooms filled with Victorian furniture, housing only two
patients per room; however, to decrease the chances of fire, stone, brick,
slate and iron were used in the construction of the buildings. His design, called
the Kirkbride model, became popular around the country, written about by Carla
Yanni in her book The Architecture of
Madness.
Known to us locals as
‘Greystone’ it was once a place I would avoid, fearful of even driving near the
grounds. My mother would jokingly accuse my brothers and I of “sending her to
Greystone” with our bad behavior, which meant we were driving her crazy. It was an anomaly in our middle-class,
suburban world. A place for crazy people. And as rumors spread about the
patients and how they were treated, most people stayed away.
The hospital population
peaked in the 1950s with the return of soldiers from World War II suffering
from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Perhaps Greystone’s most famous patient
was folk singer, Woody Guthrie, committed to Greystone on May 29, 1956 with
Huntington’s disease, which he inherited from his mother. Guthrie nicknamed Greystone “Gravestone” and
called his hospital ward “Wardy Forty” for Ward 40. Although he was moved to a New York hospital
in 1961 where he died, his daughter Nora has joined in efforts to preserve
Greystone.
Photograph taken of an abandoned
building
by Denise K. Rago
Dormitory photo taken by author 2014
In the 1970s and 1980s,
trends in mental health shifted towards the deinstitutionalization of mental
patients, and by 2003 the hospital closed its door. There had always been much
bad press about the hospital, including stories of patient suicides, the sexual
assault of patients and a twice-convicted rapist escaping from the
hospital. In 1974, community homes were
built as halfway houses for the patients.
A new hospital has been
built on the same grounds and covers over one square mile and consists of 43
buildings. Though the historic Kirkbride
building remains standing its fate is unclear. An organization formed to
preserve the hospital and several of the historic buildings continues to work
with the State of New Jersey to take over vacant structures for non-profit
agencies. The County purchased Greystone
Park from the State for $1.00 while exploring its options for the park and
buildings.
Ghost Stories
Once abandoned, rumors of
hauntings clouded Greystone, especially involving the dank underground tunnels
which connected various building and were used to transport patients and other
commodities. I myself know of people who
have worked on the grounds, sharing their tales of “feeling watched” while
there or “not able to get out of there quick enough.”
Even while taking photographs, I stay in my car and especially now that the grounds are patrolled daily by the local police. Still, I cannot imagine the landscape without the Kirkbride building. It is a part the community, for better or worse.
Even while taking photographs, I stay in my car and especially now that the grounds are patrolled daily by the local police. Still, I cannot imagine the landscape without the Kirkbride building. It is a part the community, for better or worse.
Filmmaker Sean Stone, son of
movie director Oliver Stone, set his sights on making a movie on the grounds of
Greystone Park. Simply titled Greystone
Park, the filmmakers came here in 2009 to explore the haunted asylum
famous for electroshock, insulin therapy, and lobotomies; however the crew got
more than they bargained for and the film is based on their experience
Here
is a trailer for the film Greystone Park.
Weird,
New Jersey, a popular magazine, has numerous articles
written about the abandoned buildings, the possible demolition of the Kirkbride
building, and touring the asylum. Presently,
there are working non-profits on the grounds but the energy feels oppressive,
even on a sunny day. The Kirkbride
building has been used in numerous television shows and films, including Marvin’s Room and House, M.D.
Did Jack The Ripper Die in Greystone?
The title of the article in Weird, New Jersey stated, and I was
immediately drawn in further to an article published in 1923 in the Empire News about a Norwegian sailor
named Fogelma who was committed to the Morris Plains Lunatic Asylum in New Jersey,
better known as Greystone. Apparently he was subject to fits of rage and
insanity, describing scenes and incidents that clearly connected him with the
crimes of 1888 in London. His sister
also found press clippings in his belongings about the Whitechapel murders, and
although Scotland Yard was notified, no follow up was ever done. The archivist at Greystone said there was no
record of such a patient, and one wonders about the validity of the newspaper
article. But still it’s a great story and who knows?
References
for further reading and great photographs:
e) Greystone
Park Psychiatric Hospital – Wikipedia
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Author Denise K. Rago, grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, minutes away from Greystone Psychiatric Hospital. Author of two paranormal romance novels, Immortal Obsession and Blood Tears, you can learn more about her at www.denisekrago.com.
Author Denise K. Rago, grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, minutes away from Greystone Psychiatric Hospital. Author of two paranormal romance novels, Immortal Obsession and Blood Tears, you can learn more about her at www.denisekrago.com.
