Stacy Horn

I was on The Colin McEnroe Show today talking about Trump’s suggestion about bringing back asylums.  It’s a vitally important issue to discuss, and the guests on the show made some very key points.  They were great.

I’m sorry that I didn’t make one particular point, I started to but I must have lost my train of thought. It all comes down to money. When we talk about asylums we’re talking about the poor and middle class. The rich have their own, private mental health facilities. The problem is it’s expensive to do this well. If you don’t spend what’s needed, and that’s a lot, you will have a repeat of what we had in the 19th century. And given the current political climate I don’t see a lot of money going into a public healthcare program.

I never found pictures of the inside of the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, nor could I find pictures of the buildings known as the Madhouse, the Lodge and the Retreat. But in the corner of one very idealized drawing of the Lunatic Asylum I found what I believe was a drawing of the Madhouse. (Quick backstory: I just wrote a book about Blackwell’s called Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, & Criminal in 19th-Century New York. It comes out on May 15.)

Here is a pulled back view of the drawing. The building I believe is the Madhouse is on the left.

There are a lot of empty storefronts in my neighborhood, because the rents are too high to maintain a sustainable business. I keep hoping for the return of laundromats and delis and diners, but that will probably never happen. Unless a longterm depression hits.

But I loved all the loaves of Wonderbread in the window of this recently closed business.

Last night, while in the living room resting, I heard something fall in the bedroom. I wasn’t concerned, because the cats knock things over ALL THE TIME. It’s their favorite thing, knocking things off other things. But for some reason I thought I should check. Thank god I did. One of the panes in my windows was broken and they’d managed to pull in the piece of glass, which I found on the floor. They definitely could have squeezed through the hole that was left, and gotten outside the window. It’s one of their most cherished dreams. Outside that very window is a favorite pigeon hangout spot. The cats sit in this window all the time watching them.

Here is Bodhi sitting in the window with the piece of glass duct-taped back in (and nailed). Please scroll down to see the danger they faced.

There’s only the tiniest of ledges and it’s five flights down. Jesus. I’m losing it just thinking about it. What if I had walked in when they were halfway through?? It would have startled whoever it was and he would have freaked and jumped.

Buy Damnation Island from your favorite bookseller or from: Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Kobo, or Amazon.

“Horn creates a vivid and at times horrifying portrait of Blackwell’s Island (today’s Roosevelt Island) in New York City’s East River during the late 19th century . . . Horn has created a bleak but worthwhile depiction of institutional failure, with relevance for persistent debates over the treatment of the mentally ill and incarcerated.” —Publishers Weekly.

“Stacy Horn’s history of Blackwell’s Island is a shocking tale, and an invaluable account that will reward anyone with an interest in the history of New York.” —Simon Baatz, New York Times bestselling author of For the Thrill of It and The Girl on the Velvet Swing.

“Blackwell’s Island’s descent into darkness is chronicled with clarity and conscience by master-story-teller Stacy Horn. No one who has taken that journey with her will return the same.” —Teresa Carpenter, Pulitzer Prize-winner and editor of New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009.

I was on a panel for Claire L. Evan’s new book Broad Band: The Untold History of the Women Who Made the Internet (I’m in the book!) sponsored by the New Museum and Rhizome (thank you!). Jaime Levy was also on the panel. From the website:

“Jaime Levy was an early Echo user—she posted as “Kurt’s Brains”—and a host, in her East Village loft, of the part-rave, part-hackathon “Cyber-Slacker” salon. She went on to become the creative director of Word.com, an influential early web publication that showcased the web’s creative capacities through interactive design: chatbots, games, and graphic hyper-text were fixtures of the site, which would influence a generation of online publishers.”

The panel from my point of view. It was a very nice turnout and I loved their feedback after the panel was over. It was mostly young women which was so great.

Here is the panel from the audience’s point of view. From left to right that’s Claire, me and Jaime.