Kings Park Psychiatric Center

Kings Park Psychiatric Center peaked at 9,303 patients in 1954 in a facility built for far fewer, cycling through lobotomies and electroshock before closing in 1996. The 13-story Building 93 is the most iconic ruin on Long Island, and trespassers report banging, figures in sealed windows, and a crushing sense of terror that police warnings haven't been able to stop.

In 1954, Kings Park Psychiatric Center held 9,303 patients. The facility was built for a fraction of that number. That single statistic explains everything that happened here, and everything people claim still happens.

The place started with good intentions. Kings County established it in 1885 as a rural "farm colony" in Suffolk County, designed to relieve overcrowding in Brooklyn's asylums. The idea was simple: give mentally ill patients fresh air, farmwork, and space. For a while, it functioned as planned. The campus grew into a self-contained village with its own power plant, railroad spur, farm buildings, and a network of underground tunnels connecting the structures. Patients worked the fields and tended animals. It was supposed to be therapeutic.

Then the population exploded. After World War II, admissions surged. The old philosophy of rest and agricultural therapy gave way to pre-frontal lobotomies and electroshock treatment. Those methods were largely abandoned after 1955, when Thorazine became the first widely used psychiatric medication, but the damage was done. Thousands of patients had already undergone invasive procedures in a facility that was running far beyond capacity.

Building 93, a 13-story neoclassical structure built in 1939, became the campus centerpiece. Park director Christopher Thompson has called it "probably the most iconic building we have on the premises, the tallest, the most sought after by the public for its intrigue." It housed patients through the worst of the overcrowding era and stands as the most photographed ruin on Long Island.

The state closed Kings Park in the fall of 1996. Remaining patients were transferred to Pilgrim Psychiatric Center or discharged. The buildings were left standing. The tunnels stayed open. And the 540-acre campus sat there, slowly decaying, surrounded by suburban Long Island.

The paranormal reports center on the abandoned buildings, especially Buildings 7, 15, 21, 22, 23, 93, and the quad buildings of Group 4. Trespassers describe hearing banging sounds, sometimes so loud they thought the structure might collapse. Doors open and close on their own. People see figures in the hallways and upper-floor windows. Building 15, Wisteria House, has a specific reputation for intense activity.

The physical effects are what set Kings Park apart from most asylum hauntings. Visitors report dizziness, distress, a crushing sense of abandonment, the feeling of being watched, and what several people have described as "absolute terror," not the creepy-fun kind but something closer to a panic attack. The building does something to people, whether that's ghosts or just the weight of standing in a place where 9,000 people suffered simultaneously.

The campus has its own urban legend. A patient called Mary Hatchet supposedly killed her parents with an axe, spent years confined at Kings Park, and was shot by police during an escape attempt. The story inspired a horror film called Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet. Whether Mary was a real person is debated, but the legend has attached itself permanently to the grounds.

Police actively warn people to stay away, especially around Halloween. ABC7 reported that officers patrol the perimeter and issue trespassing citations. The buildings are structurally dangerous. Floors have collapsed. Asbestos is everywhere. People keep coming anyway, drawn by the combination of genuine historical horror and the sheer visual impact of a 13-story ruin surrounded by Long Island split-levels.

A nearby bar, D.S. Shanahan's, has its own ghost: a woman who appears and vanishes when anyone approaches. Whether she's connected to the hospital is unclear, but the proximity has made her part of the Kings Park mythology.

Kings Park is not a place where you go looking for a pleasant scare. It's a place where the state warehoused thousands of people beyond its capacity to care for them, lobotomized them, shocked them, and then walked away in 1996 and left the buildings to rot. The ghosts, if they exist, have earned the right to be angry.