Abandoned by God
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What is the tragic history behind Willowbrook State School?
The telephone rings, and a male voice is on the other end. Professional. Practiced. His voice is so measured, in fact, that it takes you a moment to realize the truth. This is a bad, bad phone call. The calm voice on the other end is actually giving you the worst news you've ever received in your life. Your little girl, the voice explains. is dead. She passed away at her school and there was nothing the staff could do to save her. But what the voice doesn't tell you is that your daughter is not the first to die or disappear or be tortured within the walls of this school. In fact, this isn't even the first phone call like this he's made. And it certainly won't be the last. It's 1938 and New York has a problem.
Across the state, special needs children are being neglected, mistreated even. Maybe it's the stigma. Maybe it's that families are reeling from the Great Depression and don't have the means to take care of disabled children. But the fact is, not enough people are stepping up to care for these kids.
How did New York attempt to address the care of disabled children?
In an attempt to correct this horrifying trend, the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene is tasked with building an institution capable of housing all of them. A suitable tract of land over 300 acres in size is found in the borough of Staten Island. But the local residents immediately revolt. They're convinced that a mental institution will flood their neighborhood with insane criminals. Department of Mental Hygiene Commissioner Fred McCurdy is spearheading the initiative. The last thing he wants is for the project to get mired in local politics and lose momentum. And so, he tells a little white lie. To get construction underway, McCurdy assures the residents of Staten Island that this new mental institution will be a school, not an asylum.
It'll only house children, and they won't be a danger to anyone. Their community will not be negatively impacted, and rather, Staten Island's residents will be lauded for accepting these vulnerable children with open arms. This line ends up working, and construction begins. Over the next few years, an imposing six-story red brick building rises up from the ground, looming high as the centerpiece of the eerie, sprawling compound. Finally, in the late 1940s, after the completed compound does a brief stint as a World War II military hospital, the so-called Willowbrook State School opens its doors to students. But despite what it says on their sign, it's not a school at all. Very little education happens within its walls. Plus, Willowbrook isn't even exclusively for children, as McCurdy promised it would be. As it turned out, adult patients are quietly admitted to Willowbrook as well.
McCurdy's uneasy about misleading the public, but the fact is, 20 adults with intellectual handicaps need somewhere to go, and so he accepts them into Willowbrook, telling himself that the adult patients can help the school by performing maintenance. After all, Willowbrook is short on staff, caring for the mentally disabled is demanding work, and McCurdy simply can't find qualified people willing to fill the needed roles. Word leaks out that Willowbrook is being loose with its age requirements, and within one year, the school's adult population has ballooned from 20 to 100. The child population is set to quintuple in size as well, as word about Willowbrook is spreading and families across the state are banging down their doors to get their kids enrolled. The school, which is already barely functioning from understaffing, is experiencing absolutely staggering growth and McCurdy quickly realizes that he's in over his head.
Who were the key figures involved in the Willowbrook scandal?
he decides to hand Willowbrook off to someone more qualified. Someone who's able to give Willowbrook's patients the full-time attention they deserve. The job falls to Dr. Harold Berman, a respected physician who claims that he wants to help destigmatize mental illness and treat each patient as an individual. Berman says all the right things. However, transforming Willowbrook is easier said than done. And as it turns out, conditions do not improve when Berman takes over as director. In fact, this is when the children start to go missing. When director Berman first walks into Willowbrook, he finds patients crammed into wards and only a handful of aides scrambling to look after all of them.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the tragic history behind Willowbrook State School?
0:02–2:04
2
How did New York attempt to address the care of disabled children?
2:04–5:20
3
Who were the key figures involved in the Willowbrook scandal?
5:20–9:21
4
What unethical practices were conducted at Willowbrook?
9:21–14:38
5
How did parents react to the conditions at Willowbrook?
14:38–19:49
6
What was the outcome of the investigation into Willowbrook?
19:49–35:21