As I may have mentioned before, one of the reasons I don’t blog much anymore is because so often the fate of abandoned Kirkbride buildings is murky for years on end. I’m tired of trying to think up new ways to say “whether the building will be saved is unclear, but things sound hopeful…” Regardless, I thought it worth noting that New Jersey’s Governor Christie has announced a $27 million plan to clean up the former Greystone Park State Hospital site. The plan calls for demolition of many buildings, but also “calls for determining the feasibility of redeveloping the historic Kirkbride Building” according to an article by New Jersey News Room: Gov. Christie Announces Greystone Psychiatric Hospital Demolition for Open Space.
I’m sure $27 million — even if it was entirely for the Kirkbride — won’t go very far in breathing new life into the Greystone Kirkbride. Most of the money will go toward demolishing other buildings and converting the property into open space parkland. But at least wheels are turning in regards to the Kirkbride’s preservation. Hopefully the feasibility study isn’t just a token gesture. It would be great if the building could remain as a point of architectural interest within all that open space. It’d be even better if it could be restored to its former grandeur, but that’s very unlikely I’m sure.
Thought I’d also mention a minor bit of trivia I learned while reading about this: according to an Associated Press article, President Ulysses S. Grant spoke at the opening of Greystone Park.
The Greystone Park Kirkbride building’s future just got a little brighter. A special task force charged with developing a preservation plan for the building was just established by a bill that passed New Jersey’s state senate by a vote of 38 to 0 yesterday! The bill was sponsored by New Jersey state senator Bill Codey. The eleven member task force will be comprised of state employees and politicians, plus five members of the general public including “a former patient or family member of a former patient at the original Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.” The task force will submit their plan within six months after their first meeting. Read more: Codey Measure to Preserve Greystone Park Approved.
This doesn’t mean preservation is guaranteed for the building, but it makes it much more likely. I’m especially pleased to see the unanimous vote which indicates there’s a lot of support for saving this historic structure. Hopefully within a year (or even less) the task force will have created a solid preservation plan and Greystone’s outlook will look even better.
This is a “reprinting” of an email message from Preserve Greystone, the group dedicated to saving the Greystone Park Kirkbride building.
“On Thursday, March 25, the statewide historic group Preservation New Jersey will be holding an ‘Endangered Sites Summit’ to draw attention to five Places in New Jersey that are particularly at-risk of decay and demolition but particularly promising for reuse and valuable as landmarks. A few Preserve Greystone members will be at this idea-sharing, strategy-formulating season to present on Greystone and discuss the state of efforts to save it. Afterwards, there will be a press conference to draw further attention to issues discussed and the objectives set. As an intensive discussion group, the Summit is limited to about 20 participants, but the press conference is open to the public; the bigger the turnout the better a message it will send to politicians and the media of the interest people show and the stake they feel they have in these sites. I’m sure the other groups are rallying their troops and it will be good to have a sizable Greystone contingent too.
The press conference will be held at Centennial Hall in the Newark Public Library, 5 Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102 at 12:30PM (the same location as the Summit earlier that morning). Please feel free to email mcgovernix@gmail.com with any questions.”
A few days ago, squad546 on the Asylum Projects forum told me that Independence State Hospital is now represented in Google’s Street View. I soon after went looking for other Kirkbride buildings to see if there were any other new additions since I last checked. Below are the ones I found that you can see clearly. (more…)
A little over a month ago I wrote about a promo for the television series House and how it contained footage of the Greystone Kirkbride’s interior. However, more than one person told me that there was no sign of the show filming inside the interior. I can now confirm they were correct since Fox released a video about building sets for the interior of their fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. You can watch the video at www.snakesonastick.com. Better check it out soon because the video will probably be replaced eventually.
It’s amazing how much detail and work went into the show’s effort to reproduce the look of Greystone. I still don’t understand why they didn’t just use the hospital itself. Seems like they could have spiffed up a few areas for a lot less work than it took to build these sets.
House fan (and occasional KB.com blog reader) Deborah was kind enough to notify us that the above promo for House’s upcoming sixth season is now available on YouTube. The promo has plenty of Greystone Kirkbride shots and a healthy serving of interior views too — something I hope will be a regular feature of Season 6. Stay tuned…
In case you missed it, the first shots of the Greystone Kirkbride appeared on the House season five finale: Both Sides Now which aired about two weeks ago. You can now watch the episode online at Fox’s web site. Greystone makes its appearance just before the 42 minute mark. The footage is brief, but it’s a nice view and really captures the building’s imposing bulk. I was a little surprised to see that they didn’t try harder to make it look more like an active hospital, but maybe that was an artistic choice?
Fox’s hit television series “House” is currently shooting at the former Greystone Park State Hospital according to this article on NJ.com: TV Show “House” to Film at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. It sounds like the production is trying to keep things under wraps for now, so there’s not much information other than that the hospital will “play” the fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital on the show.
Unfortunately, scenes from Greystone probably won’t appear on the program until next season. Also, the area will be closed to the public while filming takes place. I won’t be surprised if a few Greystone “regulars” manage to do a little spying though:) Not that I recommend or endorse such things mind you.
Another little interesting tidbit from that article is that a movie titled Marvin’s Room was filmed at Greystone Park. I wasn’t aware of that and will have to check it out to see what kind of footage of the hospital it has.
3) UA Making Plans to Weather Storm
This article doesn’t go into much detail about the University of Alabama’s impending purchase of the Bryce Hospital campus, but it’s worth noting that the school still plans on making the acquisition in spite of the turbulent economic climate.
There’s a new web site concerning the fate of Greystone Park at www.preservegreystone.org. It’s owned by the group dedicated to preserving the Greystone Park site for recreation, open space and historic preservation, instead of residential and commercial development. If you’re looking for information on what’s currently happening with the Greystone Park campus, preservegreystone.org will keep you up to date. (more…)
was filmed at Greystone Park. I wasn’t aware of that and will have to check it out to see what kind of footage of the hospital it has.
