Letchworth Village

In the midst of New York’s Ramapo Mountains amongst the rolling hills of Rockland County, lies the bucolic hamlet of Thiells. It was the perfect spot for the president of the New York State Board of Charities William Pryor Letchworth to conceive of his new model of progressive care: a self-sufficient village of working farm cottages that would give mentally disabled patients a more humane lifestyle. This “community within a community” was a departure from the high-rise asylums and overcrowded almshouses which had become the standard of care for the mentally ill at the time. In 1907, New York State approved Letchworth’s plan and acquired 2,300 acres in Thiells. Construction was completed in 1911. Modeled after Monticello, Letchworth Village’s neoclassical fieldstone buildings afforded abundant sunlight to help aid the treatment of the developmentally disabled.

At the time of its opening, patients were categorized into one of three categories of feeblemindedness: idiot, imbecile, and moron. Based on their functionalities, patients helped farm, cook, sew, and care for livestock. Under the direction of superintendent Dr. Charles Sherman Little, research was conducted into the cause of mental retardation. The Village also became the testing site for the first polio vaccine. After trying it on himself, immunologist Hilary Koprowski administered the vaccine to 20 child patients, 17 of which developed antibodies to the disease.

By the 1940s, Letchworth Village nearly doubled its 3,000-patient threshold, yet new arrivals kept coming in from New York City, overwhelming the staff. It was the same time when a photojournalist named Irving Haberman released photographs of naked patients sleeping on floor mattresses. Many of them appeared to be malnourished. It became clear that the well-intentioned vision of Letchworth Village had taken a dramatic turn. In 1972, Geraldo Rivera’s ABC News exposé, Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace, shined a light on the decrepit conditions due to underfunding at Willowbrook State School and Letchworth Village. In the wake of the Rivera report, hospitals all around the country began the long, slow process of deinstitutionalization. Letchworth would move its residents to group homes while cutting down admissions before closing for good in 1996.

Today, many of the buildings still sit abandoned on the hospital grounds. A few miles away, Old Letchworth Village Cemetery serves as a stark reminder of what went wrong. T-shaped markers with only serial numbers, mark the resting place of those who lost their lives at the hospital. State agencies funded the installation of a permanent plaque inscribed with the names of the patients along with a resounding epitaph: “To Those Who Shall Not Be Forgotten.”

Sources
Almazan, S. (2018, June 14). From Shining Utopia to Terrifying Asylum: The Chilling Story Behind New York’s Letchworth Village. The Lineup Online.
https://the-line-up.com/letchworth-village

Ellis, W. (2012, August 5). Legend Tripping in Letchworth Village. AbandonedNYC Online
https://abandonednyc.com/2012/08/05/legend-tripping-in-letchworth-village/

Levine, D. The Real History of Letchworth Village. Hudson Valley Magazine Online.
https://hvmag.com/life-style/history/the-real-history-of-letchworth-village/

A Zoo That Was

About two and a half hours from New York City, up the Thruway to Exit 20 and off State Route 32 lies what was once the first privately owned zoo in the U.S. - the Catskill Game Farm. Founded in 1933 by Roland Lindemann, the zoo grew from a single enclosure with a small variety of deer to a 1,000 acre farm with 2,000 animals from all over the world. The game farm peaked in the 1960s, drawing half a million visitors each season. For decades, families would travel from near and far to visit the rural gem. Its primary attraction was the animal nursery and feeding ground where visitors were able to pet, feed, and interact with a variety of quadrupeds including deer, goats, and llamas.

I had visited it several times as a kid. While going through old pictures, I found that I had last been there at seven. Now at 32, visiting the game farm well after its closing, I was nostalgic just as much now as I was then. The reasons for my feelings were different though. As a child, I enamored with the idea of seeing animals not native to the U.S. I had read about them in books and visiting them up close turned the intangible, tangible. Revisiting the zoo 13 years after its closing and 25 years since my last visit, I was curious to see how far gone it had become.

When I pulled into the main lot of the Game Farm, the red admissions booth brought back the same excitement I had felt years ago. Once inside, the cages and pens seemed much smaller than from what I remembered. It was such a contrast from what I had once felt being here. Their emptiness carried an aura of sadness; a stark reminder of how I grew to hate the idea of zoos. Despite the Game Farm once being a magical place for me, I had come to learn that the zoo had its own share of dark secrets.

Prior to the zoo’s closing, Kathie Schultz, the owner of the Game Farm and daughter of Roland Lindemann, received several citations during the annual USDA inspections in 2004 and 2005. They included excess accumulation of manure, poor water drainage, and spoiled food. Finally, in 2006, Schultz was forced to close the doors to the Catskill Game Farm citing years of declining attendance.

The controversy didn’t end there. After the closure, there was considerable concern over the sale of the animals to unlicensed dealers for ‘canned hunts.’ A canned hunt is a trophy hunt where animals are kept in an expansive enclosure making it easier for a hunter to attain a kill. Schultz refused to donate them to sanctuaries leading protestors to picket the zoo. As a result of the press attention, animal advocated pooled their resources to form the Coalition for Catskill Game Farm Animals; the goal being to purchase as many animals as possible at the auction. They targeted the most ‘at risk’ animals including the nilgae, a type of antelope, the aoudad sheep, and two white rhinos. Although many of the animals were saved, several mammals including bison, wisent, a red stag, and other rare antelope, were sold to traders tied to canned hunts.

The property was purchased in 2012 by Ben and Cathy Ballone with the goal of turning the grounds into a campsite. In 2018, renovation work began to turn the old giraffe house into a mini inn. Today, the Ballones open up the grounds to explorers who wish to roam the vast acreage. I took full advantage of this opportunity back in July 2019.

Looking back at the zoo that was once the pride of my childhood, I couldn’t help but reflect on the true story behind what was once a magical place. There was such a contrast to the joy I once experienced as a child to the sadness I felt as an adult being on the grounds.