Kirkbride Plan

So- Um, the building was built by, um, s- Dr. ... or I'm sorry, Snowden Andrews, Richard Snowden Andrews, um, who was the, um, architect behind it.

But the Kirkbride design, or the Kirkbride Plan as some people call it, was a, he was a doctor, and he believed that mental illness could be cured by beautiful surroundings, fresh air, sunlight, and mental and physical stimulation.

So he wanted to build these very elaborate, luxurious, nice, basically nice hospitals slash, you know, homes for the mentally ill to go and be treated like human beings, have fair treatment, you know, nice luxurious life, you know, and be treated like everybody else.

It was meant to house 250 patients maximum, and, you know, with the size of that building, that, that seems like very few patients for such a large building.