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Willowbrook State School
Former institution for intellectually disabled children / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Willowbrook State School was a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities in the Willowbrook neighborhood of Staten Island in New York City, which operated from 1947 until 1987.
Willowbrook State School | |
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![]() Postcard of the school administration building | |
Location | |
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Staten Island, New York, U.S. | |
Coordinates | 40°35′59″N 74°09′06″W |
Information | |
Opened | 1947 |
Closed | 1987 |
The school was designed for 4,000, but by 1965 it had a population of 6,000. At the time, it was the biggest state-run institution for people with mental disabilities in the United States.[1] Conditions and questionable medical practices and experiments prompted US Senator Robert F. Kennedy to call it a "snake pit".[2] The institution gained national infamy in 1972, when Geraldo Rivera did an exposé on the conditions there.[3] Public outcry led to its closure in 1987, and to federal civil rights legislation protecting people with disabilities. A February 2020 New York Times investigation found that the alumni of Willowbrook continue to be abused in smaller group homes.[4]
A portion of the grounds and some of the buildings were incorporated into the campus of the College of Staten Island, which moved to Willowbrook in the early 1990s.