Upstate NY's Creepy Asylum
One of the interesting facts about Central New York, that is usually pretty unknown, is the area’s contribution to the evolution of humane care in asylums. Utica’s psychiatric center was the home of the straight jacket and the Utica crib, Willard Asylum was the first place in NY to provide long-term mental health care, and the Newark State School, as it was initially called, was developed to provi