River Crest Sanitarium was a New York State licensed mental hospital located in Astoria, Queens. River Crest was founded in 1896 by John J. Kindred (1864-1937), a Virginia native who moved to Queens and was elected to the House of Representatives, serving from 1911 to 1913 and 1921 to 1929.
History The institution went out of business in 1961. "A high school now occupies the rear of the site," and a local restaurant is "named after the Sanitarium."From the website of the high school now on the Sanitarium's site: Astoria's named-after Rivercrest restaurant:
Notable patients Wilhelm Steinitz – World Chess Champion, 1900 Thomas J. Callan – United States Army soldier, 1900 Caitlin Thomas – wife of poet Dylan Thomas, after having come to see her dying husband at St Vincent's Hospital, in November 1953
References