A push to preserve Willowbrook's legacy
Now that CSI has shelved
plan for dorms, a panel is formed to seek historic status for
350-acre area
Staten Island Advance - Sunday, March 19,
2006
A push is on to secure historic status for the
College of Staten Island and an adjacent campus used by the
developmentally disabled community, one month after CSI dropped a
contentious plan to build dormitories on the land used by disabled
young people - a site many consider sacred ground today.
A new committee is considering historic designation
for the entire 350-acre area - home to the former Willowbrook State
School, a sprawling, state-run institution where thousands of
developmentally disabled New Yorkers once lived in isolation and
squalor.
The group met for the first time recently in the
Elizabeth Connelly Resource Center, a series of buildings located
next door to the CSI campus and used each day by 600 young people
with a variety of disabilities, including autism, Down syndrome and
cerebral palsy.
Parents of disabled children were surprised when CSI
announced earlier this year that the state had offered to turn over
the Connelly Center to the college for more classroom space.
They also were upset to learn that the college was
pushing a plan to build dormitories around the Connelly Center, CSI
dropped its dorm plan last month and the state never confirmed it
was preparing to shut down the Connelly Center.
But the episode was enough to prompt Henry Kennedy,
a New Brighton resident and attorney whose third daughter, Julia, is
a person with mental retardation, to help form the 20-member
committee now considering historic status. He worries that
Willowbrook's painful history and important legacy of national
reform could someday be lost, overshadowed by the growing college.
While historic status had been discussed in the
past, the dorm controversy prompted people to act, he said. The new
committee includes parents, advocacy groups and representatives for
the college and several state agencies.
CLOSING WILLOWBROOK
"I'm sure there are a lot of people who would have
liked to see the whole place leveled," Kennedy recalled of the post-Willowbrook
era. "But it's not just the bricks and mortar. The closure of
Willowbrook had profound impacts and it should not be forgotten."
"The question becomes: How do you best recognize the
historical significance?"
The opening in 1993 of a new CSI campus at the
former Willowbrook State School was considered an ideal way to
reclaim a place that once highlighted for the nation the ignorance
and apathy common in the treatment of the disabled.
Nearly 6,000 developmentally disabled New Yorkers
lived there during the 1950s and 1960s, often in dirty, understaffed
buildings. Families were frequently told by doctors to send their
disabled children to Willowbrook, then the largest facility of its
kind in the nation.
DECREE BROUGHT REFORMS
After conditions inside the state school were
revealed, a class action lawsuit and the Willowbrook Consent Decree
followed. The 1975 decree triggered reforms nationwide for the
housing and care of people with mental retardation and developmental
disabilities. In 1987, the school - by then drastically downsized
and renamed the Staten Island Developmental Center - closed for
good.
Despite Willowbrook's epic story, state officials
determined there was no historic significance to the campus in the
1983 inventory report.
Now Kennedy hopes to get the committee to approve a
request to the New York State Historic Preservation Office, the
first step in qualifying for spots on the state and national
registers of historic places.
Such recognition would not preclude new construction
or the demolition of existing buildings, but would trigger a review
by the state Historic Preservation office each time new development
on both campuses is planned.
Kennedy said the committee may also consider
individual city landmarking for some campus buildings. The latter is
more restructive and prevents demolition.
Cultural significance, not just architecture and
age, can play a role in such landmarking processes; Ground Zero in
Lower Manhattan is also being considered for the National Register
of Historic Places.
"This is sacred ground for us," Tom Nowak, whose son
uses the Connelly Center, said of the Willowbrook campus. "Willowbrook
represents a turning point in the fight for human rights."
The center, which consists of a central spine
attached to five outbuildings, was the place where nearby 1,000
infants and toddlers with a variety of developmental disabilities
were once sent to live.
A 1971 Advance story, one in a continuing series at
the time, documented how young people living in another building
nearby often roamed the wards naked. Others were put in isolation
for more than a year at a time, with little more than a bare
mattress in tiny locked rooms.
Some of the campus buildings date back to the 1940s
and were first used as a hospital for wounded soldiers during World
War II. Known as Halloran General Hospital at the time, the property
later reverted back to the state. By 1963, the 4,200-bed institution
was bursting with 6,000 disabled children and adults.
PROS AND CONS
Bob Huber, CSI's director of communications, said
the college, which is home to the Willowbrook archive, wants to see
the site's history formally recognized, but he stopped short of
saying CSI would support listing on the state and national
registers.
Huber said the college first wants to review a draft
proposal of the committee. CSI's chief librarian is serving on the
committee.
"We are certainly very supportive of the process
going on now, which is to bring everyone in to talk about it and
discuss it on the basis that a diversity of opinions usually yields
a better result," said Huber.
Advocates for the developmentally disabled argued
that did not happen earlier this year, when the dormitory plan
caught them by surprise.
CSI is now looking to its own campus for space for
housing, but Huber said it was the state Office of Mental
Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) that first
offered the Connelly Center to the college. OMRDD has never
confirmed that.
"It's easy to understand some of the resulting
tensions between the college community and the disabilities
community," Huber said. "But I think our aims are very similar and
our involvement in this most recent meeting reflects our support. We
are working with an open heart and an open mind here, and I think
they are, too."
By Karen O'Shea
Reprinted here with permission
from the
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