American broadcasting company

In 1972 television reporter and talk show host Geraldo Rivera, then a budding journalist working for WABC-New York's Eyewitness News, conducted a series of investigations at the Willowbrook State School for the Mentally Retarded, on Staten Island. His work resulted in a televised documentary entitled "Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace" which exposed the deplorable conditions and the rampant abuse and neglect of the residents. The report won a Peabody Award and led to changes in state law and to new standards for the treatment of the mentally disabled across the country, as well as making Rivera a national star. Willowbrook closed in 1987 and the area is now part of the campus of Staten Island College.

From the guide to the Willowbrook Collection, circa 1972-1982, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)