Willowbrook: the Last Great Disgrace - preview

This is a preview of a 28-minute documentary made in 1972 by Executive Producer, Albert T. Primo and correspondent Geraldo Rivera.

Focusing on the Willowbrook Institution located in Staten Island (one of the boroughs of NYC), NY, this film was one of the first exposés ever done on local television. As a result of this program airing on WABC-TV, the manner of treating people with disabilities was forever changed.

Streaming, download and DVD of this entire film is available on http://www.sproutflix.org/content/willowbrook-last-great-disgrace

This film is part of the Sprout Touring Film Festival (showcasing films related to the field of developmental disabilities). Click the following link to see a complete listing of all the films available through this festival: http://stff.gosprout.org

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Willowbrook
• Geraldo
• Rivera
• institutions
• mental
• retardation
• sprout
• stff
• Albert
• Primo
• developmental
• disabilities
• staten
• island

[doobiesmoke15]

Snake Pit?Hell, if a zoo kept their snakes in conditions like Willowbrook they would be closed down by the humane society

[SHAOLINISLAND35]

my grandmother worked there from the 60's to 70's and she would actually bring some of those kids home with her due to sadness or feeling bad for them, she knew they were victims but she also needed a paycheck to feed her kids!

[Saoirseff]

LISTEN UP and listen very carefully-where were the families of these patients as there was no way that they were all wards of the state-WHERE were the supervisors ? --WHERE WERE THE CHARGES AND TRIALS ? laws were broken-

NOW you think it was BETTER to throw everybody out in the streets to the hell of SROs ,more victimization and no supervision ? group homes which are scarce and a difficult to get openings-- ?

BS Occupancy/staff ratios should have been enforced as the end result's obvious.

[plurp7]

i work for ARC in upstate NY... where this entire 28 min film is shown to us while beginning training to show just how this population was treated before people got together to stand to make a fair difference. thank you to all who have stood up for a better life for this community of people. we don't receive fair pay for the work we do, but we DO get to help assist to provide better opportunities than the people in this film ever got.

[EGMAG]

@SHAOLINISLAND35

I know what you mean. I volunteered 2 weekends and almost took a child home for a visit. I had no income also and could not keep up the pace. I was a understaffed place.

[brassbulletblood]

@jb55101 you lived there thats crazy,where you a nurse or a victim?

[clintonearlwalker]

There were many "Kirkbride" asylums in the US, most have closed and abandoned. I visited the former "Weston State Hospital" last summer. Some of the ice picks used for lobotomies are still there. It seems to me a close relative of Bobby Kennedy, seen in this vid had a lobotomy, maybe his sister, Rose Kennedy. There was a movie made about these asylums entitled "The Snake Pit". Dr. Walter Freeman drove around in his "lobotomobile" performing lobotomies. He performed some at Weston.

[superbooks7]

There are nursing homes & rehab centers in our own cities TODAY that have conditions that are being covered up. We need Geraldo Rivera to go into the nursing homes undercover to report what is happening inside. Patients and families are afraid to complain because they know that there are repercussions and that the nursing homes will punish any legitimate complaints against the nursing home. Someone needs to check the nursing homes & rehab centers in our city. There are "some" (few) good one

[cowgirled811]

@Ltjigsaw Yeah, I never thought it possible, but you're right. I wonder if the victims of this abomination were able to get restitution of any sort like the Pennhurst victims did. Total atrocity.

[trinnie1231]

:'( thats so sad

[trinnie1231]

:'( thats so freking sad!!

[Jaket2000]

Back in the 80s and before I would have been institutionalized for being in Special Ed.