Restoration
By 1935 Eastern State Hospital housed some 2000 patients with no more land for expansion. The restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and the Williamsburg Inn surrounded the facility with a thriving tourist trade. It is said that, on one of his frequent strolls through the restored town he helped finance, philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. happened to pass by Eastern State and introduce himself to an inmate out for a walk around the grounds. Upon hearing Rockefeller’s name, the inmate is said to have replied “Oh sure – and I’m Napoleon Bonaparte.” The hospital’s location and space issues made a move become necessary. Between 1937 and 1968, all of Eastern State’s patients were moved to a new facility on the outskirts of Williamsburg, Virginia, where it continues to operate today.
In 1985, the original hospital was rebuilt on its excavated foundations by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and now operates as a museum.
Read more about this topic: Eastern State Hospital (Virginia)
Famous quotes containing the word restoration:
“Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The 1990s, after the reign of terror of academic vandalism, will be a decade of restoration: restoration of meaning, value, beauty, pleasure, and emotion to art and restoration of art to its audience.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despite the fact that the American Revolution was successful—realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime—while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.”
—Irving Kristol (b. 1920)