Psych center lures Halloween trespassers

They loom over Long Island, like ogres threatening the bucolic landscape.

Once teeming with thousands of patients, they stand as imposing relics of 20th century institutional architecture.

Despite their similarities, the Halloween legacies of the Kings Park and Pilgrim State psychiatric hospitals are as different as day and night.

Kings Park, on 500 acres overlooking Long Island Sound, lures curiosity-seekers convinced that ghosts of former patients haunt the closed hospital, officials say.

Pilgrim State, by contrast, sits relatively undisturbed at the intersection of Sagtikos Parkway and Long Island Expressway in Brentwood.

“There are no ghosts here; that I can tell you,” said developer Gerald Wolkoff, who wants to build the $4-billion Heartland Town Square on Pilgrim State’s 451 acres.“Maybe all the spirits went to Kings Park,” he said.

Suffolk police reported two incidents at Pilgrim State the last two years around Halloween: a missing person and a loose pit bull, neither of which appeared to be Halloween-related.

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Officials say break-ins are a nuisance at Kings Park’s dormant morgue and Building 93, which towers majestically — or menacingly — over the property, controlled by the state parks office. Trespassers have stolen copper pipes and left graffiti on walls — or done nothing more than take photographs.

Part of the Kings Park site is open to the public, but most of it is closed year-round.

Vandalism and trespassing spike around Halloween, so much so that state parks police plan to again step up patrols there tomorrow through early Tuesday.

“It has attracted . . . people who think it’s a sport to enter those grounds or buildings,” said Ronald Foley, deputy regional director of the state parks office. “There seems to be a focus on these particular grounds more so than other facilities on Long Island.”

Multiple websites — with names such as Long Island Oddities, Hours of Darkness and Gothic Horror Stories — spread legends of Kings Park’s allegedly spooked edifices. YouTube videos — shot with shaky hand-held cameras and accompanied by raucous death-metal music — feature the hospital in campy horror flicks.

“Unfortunately, the property has developed the reputation for being haunted,” said Michael Rosato, chairman of a community group, Nissequogue River State Park Foundation. “It attracts young people and some people whose intentions aren’t pure.”

Suffolk and Nassau police say they will increase patrols throughout both counties for Halloween. Spokesmen for the police agencies couldn’t name specific locations targeted annually by Halloween miscreants.

About 1,000 patients still live at Pilgrim State, which is administered by the state Office of Mental Health, Wolkoff said.

It’s quiet there — and Wolkoff hopes it stays that way.

“I don’t want to jinx myself,” he said. “We haven’t got the Loch Ness monster here.”