Arched-Window Walkway Between Wards at Kings Park Psychiatric Center

Kings Park Psychiatric Center opened in 1885 as the Kings County Farm for the Insane, growing over the following decades into a sprawling campus of more than 150 buildings on Long Island's north shore. Covered walkways like this one connected wards and service buildings, letting staff and patients move between them without going outside, a common design feature in early twentieth-century asylum planning. At its peak in the 1950s the institution housed close to 9,000 patients, making it one of the largest psychiatric facilities in the country. New York State began closing the hospital in stages after deinstitutionalization policies took hold, and it shut down entirely in 1996. Many of its buildings, including these interconnected passageways, have stood vacant since.

Taken September 2008