Abandoned Prison (Camp LaGuardia)... OMG!!!

Camp LaGuardia straddles the towns of Chester and Blooming Grove. Built in 1918, the complex first served as Greycourt, a women’s penitentiary. After a sharp spike in the criminal activity of young women in New York City during and after World War I, the Women’s Farm Colony in the Town of Chester, Orange County, NY, received its first female inmates in 1924. A decade later, criminality among women was on the wane. But now, it was the depths of the Depression, homelessness and alcoholism among men were rampant. In response, the city repositioned the property, shut down the prison, transferred title from the Department of Correction to the Department of Welfare, and in 1934, cut the ribbon for Camp Greycourt. Camp LaGuardia became the city’s single biggest shelter for homeless adults. At full capacity, the facility was nearly a third of the size of the Village of Chester. The 1,001 bed camp was such a showcase of progressive thought that a scale model was exhibited at the World’s Fair. It is a collection of a h