Try free for 30 days

  • The Orphan Zoo

  • The Rise and Fall of the Farm at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center
  • By: Sabine Heinlein
  • Narrated by: Susanna Vause
  • Length: 1 hr and 15 mins

A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook free.
1 credit/month after trial—to buy any title you like, yours to keep.
Listen all you want to a selection of thousands of Audible Originals, audiobooks and podcasts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
The Orphan Zoo cover art

The Orphan Zoo

By: Sabine Heinlein
Narrated by: Susanna Vause
Free with 30-day trial

$16.45/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $4.17

Buy Now for $4.17

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

Sabine Heinlein spent almost a year reporting at "The Farm", a program for mental patients at the notorious Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens. Originally designed to teach its "members" confidence and skills by caring for animals and plants, the Farm had long become a dysfunctional hoarder's den. The patients sat idly on chairs in a grimy dayroom filled with the therapist's "collectibles" and garbage. The room was crawling with roaches, and a neglected bunny lived in its own feces and urine under the couches. The farmland had been fallow for years, and at dawn drug dealers gathered around the nearby picnic tables. Heinlein interviewed the members of the Farm until the program finally collapsed in the summer of 2013.

Augmented with audio snippets, photos, and historic newspaper articles, The Orphan Zoo chronicles the repercussions of deinstitutionalization, the administration's decades-long lack of constructive involvement and the tragic fall of a once-promising program.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2014 Sabine Heinlein (P)2014 Audible Inc.

More from the same

What listeners say about The Orphan Zoo

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.