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/wil...

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

[Collin Donovan]

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!

[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.

[CyndyNeg]

there is an identical one on long island..closed i am sure

[setlasmon]

american horror story. both meanings.

[Betty Liem]

Who knew conditions like this ever existed, in the States?

[doodles6112]

only one of the buildings on campus was part of willowbrook. i work at csi and most of the buildings were built after it was shut down

[Edward Chapman]

Oh what the heck.Everybody is a freak.

[eric1081]

This is horrible beyond words

[carringtoncitynz]

Xnewtime is rite. Sorry but even nz has its secrets. They close down places and then stash (yes i did mean that) them into the patients into motels, hotels etc. No support just one soc wkr for so many. Youll be lucky even that.

[xnewtime]

No, i’m sorry, they are not. We would all love to be sure it has changed but no money, no care.

[PlanetJigobotTV]

Back in the day it was acceptable to send your handicap to places like this... we new very little about mental health.... at least things are allot better now

[Dawnswebdesigns]

Moving people around or calling it by another name (institution, group home, nursing home) don't stop the abuse. I know there's some abuse but most of these people suffered due to the lack of funding. If we just had one building to worry about it would free up some funding to go to it. Then we could do better background checks & hire more people.