A visit to the nut house

What could be creepier than an abandoned mental institution? It’s hard to see how anything could top the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center (aka Harlem Valley State Hospital) in Wingdale, New York in that department.

Harlem Valley was built in 1924 to alleviate overcrowding in New York City hospitals. At that time, experts thought time in the country was a good treatment for mental illness; they thought the same of lobotomies and insulin shock therapy. At its peak, Harlem Valley housed 5,000 patients in 80 buildings.

At first glance, Harlem Valley looks like an urban explorer’s paradise, even though it’s far from any city. It closed relatively recently (1994), and until 2004 part of it was a juvenile detention facility, so almost everything is intact and free of graffiti. It’s unusual to find a mental institution this old that has not been at least partially demolished, since they occupy large tracts or valuable real estate.

I’m not a structural engineer, but the buildings appeared to be in pretty good shape, albeit with a patina of vegetation. The ten-story surgical building looms above dormitories and an abandoned baseball field, and there is an old power plant across the street. The whole site looks like a post-apocalyptic college campus.

Large facilities like this are quickly becoming relics of the past. Advocates for the mentally ill prefer non-institutional treatment environments like group homes; these alternatives allow people to live a more normal life with fewer restrictions. Institutions are also expensive to maintain, and with better community-based alternatives available, they aren’t really worth the cost.

Society is moving away from the concept of locking up the mentally ill, and rightfully so, but for history buffs and urban explorers, Harlem Valley is an interesting opportunity. A word of caution, though: there are no fences, but the hospital is right next to a busy road and a train station, so it’s a bit hard to sneak in unseen. I was only able to take some photos from the road before getting a “fair warning” from a worker about what would happen if I went behind any of the buildings. The buildings themselves are full of lead paint and asbestos, so try not to breath in any dust.

Also, you need to act fast. A developer bought the property in 2004 and plans to turn the old asylum into a retirement village. They’ve started demolishing the juvenile detention building, but everything else is untouched.

Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center is located on Route 22 in Wingdale New York (between Pawling and Dover), directly across the street from the Harlem Valley-Wingdale Metro North station. You’ll see a series of red brick buildings covered in vegetation.