Located in Queens, New York, the Creedmoor State Hospital opened in 1908 and, to date, it remains in operation. Today Creedmoor functions in a greatly reduced capacity, but at its peak in the 1950s, it housed as many as 7,000 mentally ill patients. Much of its campus and land has been repurposed and redeveloped, while numerous buildings also still continue to stand, abandoned and decaying. In 1978, and in a very rare move, CBS (one of the 3 major broadcast television networks at the time) was permitted complete and unfettered access to both the entirety of the facility and all of its patients. The resulting documentary, hosted by 1970s broadcast media icon Bill Moyers, provides a rare look into one of America's largest psychiatric institutions during the days just before and leading up to the massive deinstitutional movement that would largely culminate in the 1980s.
20 окт 2024
