Kings Park Psychiatric Center's York Hall nominated for historic place registers

York Hall, a shuttered theater and community building in the former Kings Park Psychiatric Center that served as a gathering place for patients, staff and neighbors for much of the 20th century, has been nominated for listing on the state and National Register of Historic Places. 

The early 1930s theater, now part of the 521-acre Nissequogue River State Park, was one of 13 nominated sites announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office Thursday. Listed sites are eligible for rehabilitation tax credits and matching state grants. The decision on inclusion on the National Register will be made by the National Park System, whose communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Under a master plan now being developed for the park, York could once more be used as a community and performance space. York “has always been a real fixture of the community,” said John McQuaid, chairman of the not-for-profit Nissequogue River State Park Foundation. “A lot of community organizations used it, staff used it. … In terms of a building being functional, of all the buildings on the park property, this seems like the most likely candidate.” 

A New York State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation report accompanying the nomination notes, with some politesse, that the red brick, Colonial Revival-style building lacks the “exuberance” of many theaters of the time, reflecting an institutional mandate and budgetary restraints. 

But its history as an artifact of civic life is rich: the state architect who designed it had a hand in the design of Attica Correctional Facility and dozens of other municipal complexes throughout the state. The building’s namesake, Msgr. John C. York, a Catholic priest honored for serving patients’ religious and recreational needs, joined a crowd of 1,000 for the building opening in 1933. Later, Kings Park bank shareholders held meetings at York. The building hosted at least one minstrel show, a rock concert sponsored by the Suffolk County Mental Health Association and productions including “Peek-A-Boo” and “Seven Year Itch” that starred patients but were open to the community. 

After the hospital closed, lack of capital funds discouraged long-term plans for the site and York, like many of its buildings, languished. Thieves stole copper flashing from the roof, contributing to water damage so severe the building was near failure before restoration began last year under a partnership between the Nissequogue River foundation, the parks office, and Charlie Reichert, the IGA supermarket magnate from Fort Salonga, who has donated close to $1 million to the effort.

"When you talk to anyone about the master plan, all they talk about is York Hall," Reichert said Friday. "... That's the centerpiece. If we can get it to where it should be, make it a theater again, we're going to have so many people come to the park." 

Alexandra Wolfe, executive director of Preservation Long Island, called the nomination a “meaningful start” to a process that should recognize the significance of the entire campus of the former hospital, which housed as many as 10,000 patients in the 1950s and was a major area employer, operating for a century before closing in 1996. Kings Park was repurposed as a state park in the early 2000s.

Between 1960 and 2017, 57 buildings were demolished. The New York State Historic Preservation Office, which in 2007 determined that the entire campus was eligible for listing, last year reversed that decision for reasons including demolitions.

A 2023 parks office report accompanying York Hall’s nomination cited “widespread and continued deterioration of the former hospital campus — characterized by numerous building demolitions, the loss of critical interrelationships and building density, along with contemporary development.” Other buildings that could be considered for listing include the hulking 13-story Building 93, once used for geriatric patients, and the buildings that compose the Veteran Memorial’s Hospital Unit. 

George Gorman, Long Island regional director of the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said his office was reviewing renovation plans for York Hall but that he could not estimate the work’s cost or give a timeline. Parks staffers are reviewing possible nominations for Building 93 and the hospital unit, he said.    

Local residents formed a group, Preserve KPPC, that advocates for consideration of the entire site. Sarah Kautz, the former preservation director for Preservation Long Island who now works as a private consultant, said she was “thrilled” by the nomination but that a reckoning of the Kings Park site needed to encompass more than just its buildings, whether intact or missing. “There are people around who worked at that site and who have living memory of that site. … The history of the site is about much more than what’s been taken down over the last 20 years.”