PARSIPPANY — The former "lunatic asylum" known as Greystone Park isn't just important to New Jersey , advocates of its preservation say in a new documentary. It's important to American history, they say.

In a video produced by history-minded filmmakers Antiquity Echos, advocates of saving the deteriorating structures of the storied psychiatric facility argue it's an important reminder of how America handled psychiatric care — for better or worse. And they say the unique architecture of the buildings deserves to be preserved.

"Seven generations of our people have walked the Kirkbride's halls, and there's no reason to think it can't be given a useful purpose seven generations from now. It was built to last, and it was built to be beautiful," John Huebner, president of Preserve Greystone, says in a trailer for "Greystone's Last Stand" posted to Youtube. A longer version is scheduled for a May 10 premiere at the Barnes & Noble store on Route 10 in Morris Plains, according to MorristownGreen.com.

State officials say they expect to demolish the 675,000 square-foot Kirkbride building and 60 other former hospital structures after removing asbestos, lead paint and other hazardous material from the site. A $50 million bond is expected to pay for the project.

Advocates of saving the old Greystone — which was replaced in 2008 — say that money will be wasted, and argue preservation-minded developers could make much better use of the property.

"The new building has no chapel. That would be hard for me, because that was such a magic space. Patients would walk in. When they went through the threshold, something happened to them," Peggy Mesinger, former director of pastoral services for Greystone says in the trailer

Greystone first opened in 1876 as the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum at Morristown — becoming Greystone Park in 1924. It was built to relieve an overcrowded asylum in Trenton, but quickly become overcrowded itself.

In 2000, then-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman ordered Greystone closed in three years, amid reports of sexual assault, patient suicides and even the escape of a convicted rapist. Its troubled reputation and the deteriorating state of its buildings led to the announcement. Buildings were demolished over the next few years, but the hospital administration didn't leave the main Kirkbride building for a new facility until 2008.

But Greystone was also the site where folk-music icon Woody Guthrie sought out treatment for his degenerative Huntington's disease. His daughter's among those who wants to see it preserved.

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A consultant's report, released last April, estimated the cost of renovating the building at between $110 million and $125 million and said there would be a loss of at least $11 million for any of three alternatives that would involve apartments, condominiums or a combination of housing and office space,

the Star-Ledger has reported

.

Preserve Greystone wrote recently on its website: "The most environmentally sound thing to do with an existing structure is to reuse and repurpose it, not tear it down at gross taxpayer expense. Our history and heritage matter — including the memory of the people who both were helped by Greystone and suffered because of it. The state shows great irresponsibility in walking away from ambitious, rewarding solutions for saving the building by private enterprise."

In Antiquity Echos' description of the trailer, it says that while asylums such as Greystone are "often seen as eerie places, these old asylums were actually built with the best of intentions for the patients. Yes, the sprawl of these wings may seem imposing to an outsider, but they were purposely created narrow to allow patients constant window views and plentiful sunlight. Since the wards were indeed slender in design, they had to make them exceedingly long in order to allow adequate room for the thousands of people living here."

It said losing Greystone would "not only be a terrible blow to national history, architectural preservation, and environmental accountability, but it will be a great disservice to future generations who will never be allowed to experience this monument to architectural engineering and psychiatric medicine."