Ambitious vision unveiled for historic Crownsville Hospital site [Video]

CROWNSVILLE, Md. — Anne Arundel County has released a draft master plan for the future of “Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park” – home to a historically segregated mental hospital known for its deplorable conditions.

It was originally the “Crownsville Hospital for the Negro Insane,” and faced chronic low staffing, overcrowding, riots in the 1950s, problematic experimental treatments and other concerns, until its closure in 2004.

Perhaps most sadly, 1,700 people who died at the hospital were buried in anonymous graves marked only with numbers.

RELATED | Board of Public Works transfers control of Crownsville Hospital Center to Anne Arundel County

The plan is to turn the 500-acre site into community spaces that include a museum, space for racial healing, Bowie State University facilities, rec fields, treatment services, maker space, artist studios, transitional/affordable housing, community garden educational center, pedestrian/bike paths, and a “Path of Reverence” – leading visitors from the campus core to the patient cemetery that will soon be a memorial to actually recognize the patients.

The trail network would feature …