Drug Treatment Center in Greystone Park, NJ.

The idea for such a facility was conceived in the early 1870s at the persistent lobbying of Dorothea Dix, a nurse who was an advocate for better health care for people with mental illnesses. At that time in history, New Jersey’s state-funded mental health facilities were exceedingly overcrowded and sub-par compared to neighboring states that had more facilities and room to house patients. Greystone was built, all 673,700 square feet (62,590 m²) of it, in part to relieve the only – and severely overcrowded – “lunatic asylum” in the state, which was located in Trenton, New Jersey. Because of her efforts, the New Jersey Legislature appropriated $2.5 million to obtain about 743 acres (301 ha) of land for New Jersey’s second “lunatic asylum”. Great care was taken to select a location central to the majority of New Jersey’s population. After visiting approximately 42 different locations, officials approved purchase of a portion of a few farms and lots, on August 28, 1881, near Morristown and a short distance from the Morris and Essex Railroad. The plots of land contained fertile soil, rock quarries for mining stone, a sand pit for building materials and reservoirs for water and ice access. The new asylum, when completed, would hold approximately 600 patients, with the large main building to be completed in sections as usage detailed. The plan of the main building was drafted to allow for a total of 40 wards split into two wings, one wing for each sx. There was to be no communication between wards. The corridors served a purpose other than just separating wards: they provided for fire protection, so that a fire would be unable to spread past a single section of the building. Upper floors in the center section contained apartments for employees, and the third story contained the amusement room and chapel for patients. Samuel Sloan was named architect of the main building and its smaller supporting buildings. Sloan chose to follow the Kirkbride Plan, a list of ideals pertaining to hospital design created by Thomas Story Kirkbride. There would be a center section for administrative purposes, then a wing on each side with three wards on a floor. Each ward would be set back from the previous one to allow patients to take in the beautiful grounds from their wards. Each ward was designed to accommodate 20 patients, with a dining room, exercise room and activity room. The wards were furnished with the highest quality materials such as wool rugs, pianos and fresh flowers.

Patients worked on the farms growing and raising food and performed hard labor tasks in the clearing away of building debris, excavating for roads, and sodding grounds. The plan of the institution called for carriage drives ending at all doorways, and a central road leading up to the front entrance flanked by trees on both sides. Grounds on both sides of the wings would provide for simultaneous exercise of both sexes while keeping them separate. An industrial building opened in 1894, allowing for more jobs for patients than just manual labor jobs in farming or groundworks. It was a widely popular belief that putting the insane to work in certain circumstances was beneficial both to the patient and the institution. Those who were chronically ill, restless in the day and night, were thought to be aided in their general well-being by working out some of the oversupply of blood to the brain. Within the walls of the new building, male patients were able to make brooms, rugs, brushes, carpets, and do printing and bookmaking.

By 1895, the State Lunatic Asylum was operating at 365 patients over capacity. The overcrowding was a major health and cleanliness issue, resulting in a small outbreak of typhoid fever, eventually blamed on the water supply. The passing of years brought no relief for a bursting hospital, occupied with 1,189 patients bedded down in an institution meant to hold only 800 every night. Cots were placed in activity rooms, exercise halls and hallways in order to try to find sleeping arrangements for all. “From a sanitary point of view these cots are an abomination,” declared the board of managers. Cots were set up and taken down on a daily basis on the hallways, and were not able to be cleaned between uses. Patients often soiled themselves during the night, and the cots were simply handed out again the following evening.