Hudson River State Hospital, Main Building
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The Hudson River State Hospital is a former
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state
psychiatric hospital A psychiatric hospital, also known as a mental health hospital, a behavioral health hospital, or an asylum is a specialized medical facility that focuses on the treatment of severe Mental disorder, mental disorders. These institutions cater t ...
which operated from 1873 until its closure in the early 2000s. The campus is notable for its main building, known as a "Kirkbride," which has been designated a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
due to its exemplary
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architecture, the first use of that style for an American
institution An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and ...
al building. and   It is located on US 9 on the
Poughkeepsie Poughkeepsie ( ) is a city within the Town of Poughkeepsie, New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsie is in the Hudson River Valley region, midway between the core of the New ...
- Hyde Park town line.
Frederick Clarke Withers Frederick Clarke Withers (4 February 1828 – 7 January 1901) was an English architect in America, especially renowned for his Gothic Revival ecclesiastical designs. For portions of his professional career, he partnered with fellow immigrant Cal ...
designed the hospital's buildings in 1867.
Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, FAIA (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape architect, landscape designer. He and his protégé Frederick Law Olmsted designed park ...
and
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designed the grounds. It was intended to be completed quickly, but went far over its original schedule and budget. The hospital opened on October 18, 1871 as the Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane and admitted its first 40 patients. Construction, however, was far from over and would continue for another 25 years. A century later, it was slowly closed down as psychiatric treatment had changed enough that large hospitals were no longer needed, and its services had been served by the nearby Hudson River Psychiatric Center until that facility's closure in January 2012. The campus was closed and abandoned in 2003 and fell into a state of disrepair. Authorities struggled with the risk of
arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...
and vandals after suspicion of an intentionally set fire. The male bedding ward, south of the main building, was critically damaged in a 2007 fire caused by lightning. The property was sold to an unnamed buyer in November 2013. The site is currently being developed as a $300 million mixed-use project called Hudson Heritage, which will include 750 residential units, commercial space, medical office space, a hotel, and a conference center.


Buildings

The Hospital includes a number of unique buildings: *Main Building (the Kirkbride), a
High Victorian Gothic High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either a sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style in its own right. Prom ...
building used for administrative purposes. This building will be preserved for future purposes. *Patient Wings, which split off the Kirkbride, housed patients. The male ward splits off to the south, and is much larger than the female wing to the north. It was struck by lightning on May 31, 2007, igniting a serious fire. These wings will be demolished sometime in the future. *Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches were available to patients, one of which was near the male ward. One of the churches will be preserved for future use. *A
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, with refrigerated cold chambers was located on the northeast corner of the property. This building will be demolished sometime in the future. *A power house was built, and still stands, to the northeast of the Kirkbride to provide power to the various buildings. Its smokestack is visible from Route 9 as well as nearby
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. This building will be demolished sometime in the future. *Ryon Hall opened in 1934 and housed violent or criminally insane patients. It was on the very southern property line, visible from Home Depot, in the shadow of the much larger Cheney Building. The building was demolished on October 14, 2019. *The Clarence O. Cheney Building, opened in 1952, is a ten-story steel structure with a brick facade. Named after Dr. Clarence O. Cheney, MD (1887-1947), the president of the
American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 39,200 members who are in ...
from 1935 to 1936, and hospital's superintendent from the 1920s until 1946, the building held doctor's offices and medical examination rooms. The building did provide some patient housing. This building was demolished in 2020. *The Herman B. Snow Rehabilitation Center opened in 1971 and provided recreational relief for patients, sporting two
bowling alley A bowling alley (also known as a bowling center, bowling lounge, bowling arena, or historically bowling club) is a facility where the sport of bowling is played. It can be a dedicated facility or part of another, such as a clubhouse or dwelling ...
lanes, a lunch counter, an auditorium, a basketball court, and an indoor
swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...
. The building featured a modern concrete and glass construction with angular asymmetrical wings. Skylights provided natural lighting. This building was demolished in 2019.


History

The entire facility was built over the last three decades of the 19th century, at great cost. Once complete, it would be used as intended for much of the first half of the next century. As psychiatry moved away from inpatient treatments, it began to decline in use until its closure at century's end. Today, it is slowly deteriorating out of public view as it awaits reuse.


19th century

New York had opened what has since become
Utica Psychiatric Center The Utica Psychiatric Center, also known as Utica State Hospital, opened in Utica on January 16, 1843. It was New York's first state-run facility designed to care for the mentally ill, and one of the first such institutions in the Un ...
in 1843, the first state-run institution for the
mentally ill A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
. By the
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it was reaching its capacity, so in 1866 then
Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
Reuben Fenton appointed a five-member state commission to look for a site for a second hospital in the
Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley or Hudson River Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The region stretches from the Capital District (New York), Capital District includi ...
between
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and Albany, to serve New York City and the counties of Eastern New York., cited a
Hudson River State Hospital
, retrieved from historic51.org November 11, 2007.
In January of the following year the members reported to the governor that they had temporarily secured a tract of land overlooking the
Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...
north of Poughkeepsie, formerly part of the estates of
James Roosevelt James Roosevelt II (December 23, 1907 – August 13, 1991) was an American businessman, Marine officer, activist, and Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party politician. The eldest son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor R ...
and William A. Davis. It would cost nothing as the citizens of
Dutchess County Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later org ...
would be offering it to the state as a gift. Two months later, the state accepted. A nine-member Board of Managers was created and appointed to initiate and oversee construction of the actual building. They chose architect
Frederick Clarke Withers Frederick Clarke Withers (4 February 1828 – 7 January 1901) was an English architect in America, especially renowned for his Gothic Revival ecclesiastical designs. For portions of his professional career, he partnered with fellow immigrant Cal ...
to design a building according to the
Kirkbride Plan The Kirkbride Plan was a system of mental asylum design advocated by American psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride (1809–1883) in the mid-19th century. The asylums built in the Kirkbride design, often referred to as Kirkbride Buildings (or simp ...
, then a popular theory for the design of mental institutions. Withers planned a building 1,500 feet (457 m) in length and over 500,000 square feet (45,000 m2) in area, most of it two wings that would house patients. It was the first institutional building in the U.S. designed in the
High Victorian Gothic High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either a sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style in its own right. Prom ...
style Style, or styles may refer to: Film and television * ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal * ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film * ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film * '' ...
.
Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, FAIA (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape architect, landscape designer. He and his protégé Frederick Law Olmsted designed park ...
and
Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...
, designers of New York's
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, laid out the surrounding
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
. Like Withers, they had been influenced by
landscape gardener Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructi ...
Andrew Jackson Downing Andrew Jackson Downing (October 31, 1815 – July 28, 1852) was an American landscape designer, horticulturist, writer, prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival in the United States, and editor of ''The Horticulturist'' magazine (1846–1852). ...
in nearby Newburgh. The centerpiece of his design was the administration building, which branched off into two wings, composed of six parallel pavilions that flanked the central structure. The two wings, designed to hold 300 patients of either sex, were divided by a
chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...
placed between them in the yard behind the administration building so that patients could not see into the rooms of the opposite sex. The building and landscape plan were meant to aid in patients' recovery, by giving them adequate space and privacy and imbuing their healing with a sense of grandeur. Construction began in 1868, with the cost estimated at $800,000. Cost-saving measures included the construction of a new dock on the Hudson so that building materials could be shipped more directly to the site,
quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...
ing and cutting the foundation stones on site, mixing
concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...
from local materials and hiring local craftsmen instead of a
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. The board also deviated from the plan it had sent the state, in particular by building a shorter female wing when it came to believe that fewer patients of that sex would be admitted. As a result, it is one of the few Kirkbride hospitals to have been built with asymmetrical wings.


Spending controversies and delays

Despite the efforts to save money, the board was slightly over the $100,000 it had expected to spend that year, according to its first
annual report An annual report is a comprehensive report on a company's activities throughout the preceding year. Annual reports are intended to give shareholders and other interested people information about the company's activities and financial performance. ...
. The main building was completed and opened, with 40 patients admitted, in October 1871. As work continued on other structures planned for the complex, so did the
cost overrun A cost overrun, also known as a cost increase or budget overrun, involves unexpected incurred costs. When these costs are in excess of budgeted amounts due to a value engineering underestimation of the actual cost during budgeting, they are known ...
s. In 1873, the year county residents had been promised the hospital would be finished, the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' ran an
editorial An editorial, or leading article (UK) or leader (UK), is an article or any other written document, often unsigned, written by the senior editorial people or publisher of a newspaper or magazine, that expresses the publication's opinion about ...
harshly criticizing the board for not only having gone way over budget but for lavish extravagance and waste: Some efforts were made to stop the project, but the
legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...
continued to appropriate funds despite further revelations like these. Construction continued until 1895, when further money could not be found. Despite this expenditure of time and money, the hospital's original plan was still not complete, and never would be.


20th century

A Refrigerating Plant was built 1948 and a Tubercular Hospital was built in 1951 to the designs of Samuel Juster of DePace & Juster.'' American Architects Directory'', First Edition (
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: R.R. Bowker LLC, 1956), p.236
Buildings continued to be opened and reopened in the 20th century, and as late as 1952 the institution was treating as many as 6,000 patients. Changes in the treatment of mental illness, such as
psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
and
psychotropic drugs A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, mind-altering drug, consciousness-altering drug, psychoactive substance, or psychotropic substance is a chemical substance that alters psychological functioning by modulating central nervous system acti ...
, were making large-scale facilities relics and allowing more patients to lead more normal lives without being committed. A major fire destroyed a hospital wing in the 1960s and threatened to spread to the administration building, but was halted in a connecting hallway. The section was rebuilt, although some large roof beams still showed evidence of the earlier fire. Though 1971 saw the addition of the Snow Recreational center, by the late 1970s the hospital administration had decided to shut down the two main wings as few patients were residing in them and due to neglect some of the floors had collapsed. The hospital housed 1,780 patients by 1976. The state offices of Mental Health and
Historic Preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK) is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...
clashed over a plan to demolish the wings, even after the
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
designation in 1989. In the 1990s, more and more of the hospital site would be abandoned as its services were needed less and less. It was consolidated with another Dutchess County mental hospital, Hudson River Psychiatric Center, in 1994 and closed in 2003. The center moved operations into a much smaller building nearby, Ross Pavilion, located on a hilltop on the east side of Rt 9G.


2000s

In 2005, the state sold the property and subsequently, the
Empire State Development Corporation Empire State Development (ESD) is the umbrella organization for New York's two principal economic development public-benefit corporations, the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the New York Job Development Authority (JDA). ...
sold including the Main Building to Hudson Heritage LLC, a subsidiary of the Chazen Companies, for $2.75 million. Hudson Heritage and Chazen had planned to thoroughly renovate the Main Building into a combination hotel/apartment complex as the centerpiece of a residential/commercial campus, Hudson Heritage Park. Redevelopment plans hit two setbacks in the mid- to late-2000s: in 2005, the Town of Poughkeepsie imposed a moratorium on new construction to cope with its growth. Hudson Heritage had been seeking to have a "historic revitalization district" created for the property that would help spur its growth. Then, on May 31, 2007,
lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...
struck the sprawling south wing, which held male housing, causing one of the most serious fires in Dutchess County's history. It is unclear whether that portion of the building can be effectively restored after such severe damage. The Administration building was again hit by fire on the morning on April 27, 2018. In the meantime, the property has remained closed to the public, with signs posted at fenced-off entrances. Local firefighters have complained, after dealing with two fires in April 2010 that appeared to be deliberately set, that the property is not adequately secured against trespassing.


2010s

As of May 2012, the campus was owned by CPC Resources, a subsidiary of the
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
-based Community Preservation Corporation, a non-profit mortgage lender that finances multifamily developments. CPC has placed the 162-acre parcel on the market, citing that the poor economy has hindered timely development.
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has shown a strong interest in the property, but Poughkeepsie Town Supervisor Todd Tancredi noted that the Town Board cannot envision such a large piece of land used for a single store. An unnamed buyer purchased the campus for an undisclosed sum in November 2013. The closing for the property occurred on November 8, 2013. The site is currently being developed as a $300 million mixed-use project called Hudson Heritage, which will include 750 residential units, commercial space, medical office space, a hotel, and a conference center.


Fire

An intentional fire was set on the morning of April 27, 2018 at the Hudson River State Hospital, according to Fairview Fire District Chief. The fire was located in the wing of the old Main Administration building, and firefighters were dispatched around 3:45 AM; more than a dozen agencies responded with assistance.


Demolition

Demolition began on July 13, 2016 when smaller auxiliary buildings were torn down. The heavy vegetation that mostly hid the property from plain sight was cleared in summer 2019. The demolition of Ryon Hall, on the extreme southern end of the property, began on October 14, 2019. As part of the mixed use site, the "Kirkbride" main administration building, library, amusement hall, chapel, and the northernmost tower of the north wing will be preserved and put in to adaptive reuse. Also, the Great Lawn will be preserved. As of May 25, 2020, the fate of the other buildings on the North Campus is still unwritten and may be added for future use.


References

19. Rowe, Claudia May 30, 2001. "Modern Efficiency Displaces Historic Psychiatric Hospital". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-15.


External links


Historic 51
, site devoted to history and preservation of Main Building.
High Definition video from Kirkbrides HDForbidden Places
history, original postcards and photos from 2004.


Videos of 2007 fire

* * {{authority control Hospital buildings completed in 1871 Government buildings completed in 1871 Buildings and structures in Poughkeepsie, New York Defunct hospitals in New York (state) Gothic Revival architecture in New York (state) Hospitals established in 1867 Hudson River Kirkbride Plan hospitals National Historic Landmarks in New York (state) National Register of Historic Places in Dutchess County, New York Psychiatric hospitals in New York (state) U.S. Route 9 Victorian architecture in New York (state) Calvert Vaux designs Frederick Clarke Withers buildings 1867 establishments in New York (state) Hospitals disestablished in 2003 2003 disestablishments in New York (state)