Greystone Becomes “Gravestone”

ONE OF THE MORE INFAMOUS ASYLUMS IN NEW JERSEY LORE is Greystone Psychiatric Park, located in Morris Plains. First conceived in1871 and known as The New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum at Morristown, the institution first opened its doors (to a mere 292 patients) on August 17, 1876.

In its day, Greystone was a landmark in progressivism. Designed by Thomas Kirkbride, the hospital advocated uncrowded conditions, fresh air, and the notion that mental patients were curable people.
One of the more famous aspects of Greystone is its notorious network of underground tunnels and rails. This system led to Greystone being built on one huge foundation --it was actually the largest continuous foundation in the United States until the Pentagon was constructed. Being that the hospital sits on over 670 acres of land, this rail system served to unite the entire complex as one contained unit.

 Over time, the humane reputation of Greystone was tarnished, as overcrowding became the norm (the hospital, which was originally meant to house hundreds, once contained 7,674 patients in1953). Overcrowding was a problem almost immediately in the hospital’s history. In 1881 the attic was converted into patient living space, and in 1887, the hospital’s exercise rooms were converted into more dormitories.

One of the hospitals more famous patients was folk singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie, who spend a stint at Greystone from 1956 to 1961. Woody was suffering from Huntington’s disease, a hereditary, degenerative nervous disorder which would eventual prove terminal. During his stay there, Woody referred to Greystone as “Gravestone.” This sardonically humorous nickname might prove more prophetic than Woody ever could have imagined, as Greystone might well be the last monument to a dying breed of New Jersey’s gargantuan mental institutions.

The Catacombs of Greystone

A little known fact about Greystone is that there are five or six abandoned buildings on the premises linked together by an underground network of deteriorating hallways. We call these ‘the catacombs.’ My friends and I have explored the majority of the buildings, and we’ve found some unbelievable stuff. I’ve seen machines with histories I can only speculate about. Cauldrons lie in a state of disrepair where food was once cooked for thousands at a time. I’ve seen cells for the dangerous, and huge human cribs for the mentally vacant. I can only imagine what the operating room we discovered was used for, or the holding pen in the catacombs. –Pete Katsos

Phantom Bowlers of Greystone

I currently work at a psychiatric hospital in New Jersey. When I first started working there, my supervisor at that time gave me a tour of the tunnels. I saw the cots, beds, old stores, etc., but deep inside one tunnel is a full-size bowling alley; the pins and balls are still there. Of course, everything is in a state of deterioration, but it was very eerie. You could almost see the patients still bowling. - Sandy B.

Escaped Lunatics Come to Call

I have friends who live near Greystone and have told stories of people who have broken out. One person said that while she was watching her siblings, she heard knocking on the windows and doors, but assumed it was the wind. The next morning, they read about another breakout in the paper, and went outside to discover footprints in the snow going to every door and window on the first floor. - Matt Y, Parsippany

Deep Beneath the Old Asylum

One particular building is very secluded and very abandoned. It’s four stories high and has numerous wings. My friend Bryan told me that he had been in there. The cops busted him, and later told him that escaped patients hide out there, suicide victims are found in there quite often, and that tunnels run for miles underneath the property, connecting all the buildings to each other.

From where we parked the car we would walk to the abandoned building. For some reason I thought we would get there, everyone would chicken out and we would leave.

We made our way up to the building and saw it looming there in the darkness. Right about now I was getting very nervous. All of the hundreds of windows had rusty chain linked fencing bolted over the old glass, except for one that Bill lead us to. The window was swung outward, providing easy access to the inner sanctum of the old asylum.

When we were all inside the first room with the window, I noticed the smell. The air was very thick and warmer than outside, and it smelled like heavy mildew and dampness. Bill led us out into the hallway. I swear I have never been that scared before in my life. The floor had papers and old drawers on it, and there were many rooms shooting off from each side of the hallway. In any one of them I feared an escaped mental patient would jump out and kill us.

Bill led us down the hallway to an old darkroom. Inside, there were huge filing cabinets with drawers filled with manila envelopes. Each envelope contained four by five negatives of old mental patients! Now at this point I was really scared, and the entire place was freaking me out.

The next thing we knew, Bill told us we’re going into the basement. So we found the old stairwell and made our descent, down to the tunnels that lead to different buildings and wings. We shined the flashlight to the right and to the left, and it went as far as we could see.

We walked around seventy-five feet down the hallway when we came to another walkway that went to the right. Bill told us that was where the holding cells were. He shined the light up the elevated walkway and there were the holding cells for the criminally insane. The cage-like cells were an eerie sight, not to mention a grim reminder that at one point in time, in the very hallways where we walked, dangerous people once lived. My only hope was that none of them were still occupying this building while we were in there.

We came to a corner. Right around the bend sat two very old wheelchairs. Bill told us that the other hallway, which led to another wing, was where he had seen human-sized cribs and old, mildew-ridden straightjackets.

Suddenly Bill told us all to stand completely still and not to make a sound. We thought we heard something coming from the other hallway, and decided we’d better get out of there. I was all for that idea.
We made our way back to the long hallway. Bill led us back to the room with the window, and one by one we climbed out. The weight was off my shoulders and my heart was beginning to beat at a normal pace again.

We loaded up into the Volvo and returned to Bill’s house. Bill took out a light table and everyone looked at the negatives of the mental patients.Each patient was holding up a set of numbers, like in a mug shot. Some I guess weren’t able to do this on their own because you could see another hand, probably that of a nurse, holding the sign for them. Some of the patients looked very scary, and it was strange to know that we had been in that same building that they were. - J. P. H.

Photos by Phil Buehler

You can read more about Greystone in Weird NJ issues #7, 9, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26 , and 30.