this is a question from an interview with someone named Rick Moody. he writes novels and makes music and one of his songs inspires the name of his new band the “Wingdale Community Singers”
PM: How did you come up with the band’s name and what does it mean? The song title “Wingdale Asylum Seekers” gives a hint, I imagine, but can you explain it?
RM: When I was a kid, we used to go up into the country, I grew up in Connecticut suburbs, but we used to go up into upstate New York on weekends now and then. And we went up Route 22, which goes by an incredibly creepy, old state mental hospital called Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital, but it’s in this town called Wingdale and it’s popularly known as Wingdale. It scared the bejesus out of me as a kid. I mean these buildings were just as creepy as you would suspect, knowing later on what it was that was done within them. And they were very Stalinesque and scary. Since then it’s been closed down, it was closed during the institutionalization period when all of the state mental hospitals got emptied. So now they’re these Chernobyl-like ghost buildings. On the one hand Wingdale Community Singers sounds like an old-timey folk band, but on the other hand it has this luminous, scary Jungian layer of referring to the old psychiatric hospital.
mania 
Perfect description. I have always felt that way about Wing Ding. Just drove by it and it has been bought and will be a retirement home. Currently 40% occupied as JD facility with SERIOUS razor. Alzheimers will prevail there as there were many Frontal Lobotomies there. Coincidentally also drove past Byberry today. Equally creepy if not more so.
I lived in Wingdale growing up. The psychiatric center was bone chilling to me as a child. At one point I even lived not too far up the street from it. I never walked inside though. I remember when I heard someone bought it out I thought to myself that I would never want to visit it afterward knowing the terrible things that took place there.
I worked at harlem valley psych for close to 5 years.You all are just seeing the buildings and yes they are intimidating.However they were home to many real people.Maybe in the 50s terrible things happened there but that did change as the years progessed and advancements in mental health care changed.I worked with some very caring folks.I myself got pretty attached to some of the clients there.We provided a safe place for many who due to their severe illness would have no place to go.Mental illness whether severe or mild is an illness and does not discriminate.You think you were spooked think how some of our clients felt many times.For some of those people it was the only home they ever knew.It also provided a decent paycheck for many area residents.Just letting you know.