WILLARD, N.Y. – A rare tour turned chaotic in Seneca County is leaving many with unanswered questions about what happened.
Canandaigua resident Nancy Whalen was just one of thousands on Saturday hoping to take a walk back through history in what was once America's largest mental asylum, the Willard Psychiatric Center.
“We had planned this trip for about a month,” Whalen said. “My dad had relatives who had children in the hospital back in the 50s and we always heard about it. So my sister and I thought it would be quite interesting, a bit of history to go see.”
Their idea of a good afternoon however came to a sudden stop when they reached the small hamlet of Willard.
“The traffic was horrendous,” Whalen said. “There were lines and lines of traffic. All of a sudden we saw everybody turning around and coming past us and hearing some cursing going on because it looked like a lot of disappointed people and they were yelling out the windows at us that they had shut it down.”
For those who did get it in, they say the situation wasn’t much better. One visitor said her tour guide never showed up and her 50 person group was paired with another 50 person group. After going inside one building, the group disbanded when they couldn't find each other.
“It was basically a free for all,” Endicott resident Kandy Stroup said. “You could wander through buildings and they never told you, ‘you can’t go here or there.’”
Back outside the gates, state troopers said they were called in to help direct traffic, block routes and turn people away. Late Saturday night came a flood of comments on Facebook asking the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Children's Center, which hosted the fundraiser, why many people weren’t let in. The Center had advertised there would be unlimited space and all tickets needed to be bought at the door.
In a response, which they have since deleted, staff said they never expected so many people.
They also wrote, “someone turned the thermostat at the daycare as a high as it would go causing steam to billow out of the building giving the illusion there was a fire. The Ovid Fire Department responded but the traffic on the roads made it difficult. It was at this time law enforcement said no more traffic would be permitted.”
Although initial reports indicated there was vandalism on the property, the Department of Corrections said there were only a few broken door knobs and many people entered restricted areas. The DOC also stated that it plans to discuss its concerns with the center and come to a solution to improve the tour for next year.
“I would absolutely go on a tour again if they took care of the security and the amount of people and it’s organized a little bit better,” Stroup said. “I would even pay a little bit more.”
That’s the sentiment from many hoping to one day get a rare look at a unique piece of history.