The Psychiatric History of New York Tour

Take an analytical stroll through the evolution of psychiatry—from asylums to psychoanalysis—on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Explore how mental health treatments, institutions, scandals, and philosophies shaped not just medicine, but the city itself.

This tour traces the arc of psychiatric thought in New York City, from early “madhouses” to modern neuroscience. Along the way, you’ll encounter a cast of real doctors, researchers, reformers, and profiteers who all left their mark on the city’s mental health legacy. Far from clinical, this walking tour unpacks the social forces, pharmaceutical booms, and power structures behind America’s most ambitious (and often controversial) psychiatric evolution, right where it happened.