The Lost City of Pennhurst

Okay. It's May already.

pennhurst@verizon.net — Tue, 9 May 06 22:50:00 UT

Due to the prescence of ticks that carry all kinds of pathogens, I have decided to avoid the ruins of Pennhurst till next season. All you "Urban Explorers" take warning: that place is infested with deer herds and the deer breed ticks. I've had too many friends that came down with Lyme's disease and spent months in the hospital getting rid of it.
So I'll be signing off until the next freeze hits.

The Greening of Pennhurst

pennhurst@verizon.net — Tue, 25 Apr 06 19:45:00 UT

I took a walk through the ruins this evening.
Everywhere, spring is in the air. The ticks too.
As a matter of fact, I pulled one off the dog and I'll be checking her over when she comes in tonight. Damn bloodsuckers, the one thing that proves the Devil is real.
Not much other activity to report in Pennhurst. Did see a pair of does running around near the old wooden house. Also noted some vultures swooping low over the rear road that leads up to the lower campus. I can't help but wonder if in ten years time the buildings will start collapsing on their own, leaving a framework for the vines.

Vanishing Pics

pennhurst@verizon.net — Mon, 24 Apr 06 23:35:00 UT

Ok it looks like the damn place where I put the last Pennhurst photos have deleted them. I guess they want me to pony up the cash and pay to use their storage site. Jerks. I see what I can do about finding another place to put them.

Finally, The Photos

pennhurst@verizon.net — Mon, 10 Apr 06 20:34:00 UT

Ok, sorry for the delay. I now have the pics safely stored in a location from which I can upload:

Here we have the road leading up to the Veteran's center:

Bear With Me

pennhurst@verizon.net — Mon, 3 Apr 06 08:25:00 UT

It seems that thte place I've been storing my Pennhurst photos has reached a limit. I can no longer put more photos of the ruins on this site without locating another storage locker. So there won't be any more photos published until I can do such a thing.
As some of you may know, I have been gainfully unemployed since Novemeber. The jobs I thought were going to materialize never did, so I still am without work. Therefore, I can't shell out funds to load these pictures. If I can find another free location, I may start to post them again.
I visited the ruins last week since the weather has been good. Looks like there's going to be a nice spring around here, which I could use. The wildlife at the ruins are coming out of winter hibernation. I noted a stream near the old steam plant that was full of frogs.

Ancient Afternoons

pennhurst@verizon.net — Fri, 17 Mar 06 22:05:00 UT

The weather has been a little cooler than it was last week, but today I was once again able to tour the ruins of Pennhurst. There is just something eerie about that place. You walk around crumbling buildings and wonder if youâve just wondered onto a set from the X FILES. Or maybe youâve hit a time warp and this is what it looks like after the fall of civilization. The signs of former activity are all over the place: you canât walk ten paces with out running into a fire hydrant sticking up out of the ground or a still-functioning street light. Where late the sweet birds sang.

My original intent was to write about the history of Penn. Iâm finding that I really donât need to do that as El Peechoâs website already had plenty of information on the place, both in the past and present. My only complaint is that he should put the bulk of it into a coherent whole. There are plenty of fragments on the site, but if there is a Pennhurst timeline I have yet to find it.

The wildlife at Pennhurst is always the highlight of my trip. I still havenât seen any âvenuesâ of vultures circling around, but I did run into a deer herd. Saw a fox running down a road. The same woodchuck was staking out its territory on the way in and back. Of course, Tiamara, my canine companion, went nuts each time we saw them. I used to let her run free on the grounds, but that was years ago before she started figuring out she could find her own way back home.

Saturday Afternoon Walk

pennhurst@verizon.net — Sat, 4 Mar 06 19:35:00 UT

The weather cleared up a bit today which allowed me a chance to get over to Pennhurst. I see that the stove and microwaves that were dumped at the southern entrance have been removed. Now thereâs a huge culvert pipe with the words âKEEP OUTâ spray-painted in fluorescent paint sitting on the side as you walk down to the Penn Dot station. I hope it does something to keep out the vandals, but I doubt it.

Hereâs a picture of my traveling companion Tiamara (click for larger picture):

Sheâs a good dog, even if she runs off when I donât have the leash on her. Iâve kept her leashed in Pennhurst every since she found some huge buck and tried to make friends. I was terrified that damn deer was going to pin her to a tree with his antlers. While running after dog and deer I lost the cell phone I carried in my pocket. Later someone called me on the cell phone to let me know they found it on the outskirts of Pennhurst. No, it wasnât the deer. Here are another shot of one of the buildings in the lower campus:

And:

They really need to do something about the condition of that lower campus. There is a pile of busted computer terminals in front of the maintenance building that somebody had been using for target practice. Not to mention the bag of beer bottles left out there. Someone should sponsor a Pennhurst clean-up day.

The AA Movie

pennhurst@verizon.net — Fri, 3 Mar 06 21:03:00 UT

Since I donât really feel like going into Pennhurst in this freezing cold weather, there really hasnât been a lot to write about. The commonwealth of PA has put the whole issue of what to do with the place on the back-burner. Who knows, maybe that whole veteranâs cemetery thing will surface once again. As long as they donât turn the place into another one of these pre-packaged housing developments that are made of âtissue paper and spitâ (as one friend likes to put it). Although I could see another sequel to POLTERGEIST coming out of that idea.

So what Iâm going to do today is write about the kind of film that has emerged over the past few years which features abandoned hospitals and asylums. Iâm nominating âThe Abandoned Asylumâ movie (or AA) for the genre, since nobody else has done so. AA movies are always filmed at a long disused institution of some kind and feature the vengeful spirits of the poor inmates who were once housed there. The filmmakers would have us believe these are serious commentaries on the way society has treated the mentally ill over the years. I think itâs just a cheap way to scare the crap out of people using crumbling buildings.

The best of these films would be SESSION NINE, a film thatâs hard to find in rental stores, but worth the effort. In this one, a group of men doing asbestos removal work at an abandoned asylum slated for demolition find that the demons within can be more deadly than those from the supernatural. SESSION NINE was filmed at the old Danvers State Hospital near Boston and it is a creepy place. The director would later go on to make the equally creepy horror movie THE MACHINIST with Christian Bale.

Other AA movies that can be found at your local video rental store include DEATH TUNNEL, BOO, and even parts of the KINGDOM HOSPITAL TV series. Iâll list more as I think about them.

I think there is another reason so many of these films popping up: the sheer number of abandoned hospitals and institutions in this country. Iâm not going to start some tirade about lack of public support for the mentally ill because most of these places were shut-down when courts decided to mainstream such people. In my town alone, I know of several group homes for the mentally challenged. Many of these people used to reside at Pennhurst. And I think a good argument can be made that shutting them down was a good thing in the long run. But the stark, gray shells remain to let us know of a time when society felt is was better to institutionalize someone than leave them chained to the wall in a basement.

They also make for a ready-made horror movie set.

The Upper Campus

pennhurst@verizon.net — Mon, 27 Feb 06 10:45:00 UT

It is still very cold around here. I made it over to the upper campus yesterday, but didn't see anyone out. There where a few vehicles around the national guard armory, but nothing else. Guess the Battery is inside in this weather.

The main hall for the national guard seems to have been there quite a long time. I could put pics of the anti-aircraft mobile guns they have on display out front, but I'm focusing here on the ruins. Besides, this is not the time to be standing outside taking pics of tanks and APC's

The pics I have linked today are from the newer part of Pennhurst. I'm not sure if they plan on knocking these down eventually as well. The buildings do have a more recent construction. They may be part of the veteran's center.

Gloomy Days

pennhurst@verizon.net — Wed, 22 Feb 06 13:51:00 UT

Haven't made it over to Pennhurst in over a week. The weather around here has been too cold to allow for any trooping around there. Which is a shame because this is the best time to view the ruins. In a few months the weather will warm up, but then the ticks will start breeding.
So it seems the state may yet have plans for the site. They were talking about a Veteran's cemetery on the grounds, then it was decided to move it someplace else. But that's not a done deal.
I don't really mind the idea of a veteran's cemetery on the grounds. Just so long as a few of the buildings are preserved to remind people what it was. The place really needs to have some kind of museum established there.

Another Web Site

pennhurst@verizon.net — Wed, 8 Feb 06 22:31:00 UT

I've just found this fascinating website about Pennhurst:
www.elpeecho.com/pennhurst/pennhurst.htm
It's full of information about the history of the place and has a whole section with documents that forced the closure of Pennhurst. There is even a streaming video option that allows you to see several documentary films about Pennhurst. Has a bulletin board about it too.
I'm going to add it in the "links" section. More about this site as I look it over.

The Veteran's Hospital

pennhurst@verizon.net — Wed, 8 Feb 06 17:25:00 UT

I went over to the veteran's hospital on the Pennhurst grounds to introduce myself to their security. Since I call and let the security officers know when I'm walking on the grounds, I figured it would be a good idea to let them see what I look like. There is someone in the security office 24/7, which is a good thing. The officer I met confirmed my suspicion that a few of the abandoned buildings had caught fire in the past. I was going to include some photos of the VA center with this post, but the light wasn't right.

The Deer Horn Hunter

pennhurst@verizon.net — Wed, 1 Feb 06 14:50:00 UT

Passing through the lower grounds at Pennhurst, you have no idea of what will be encountered. There always seems to be some car driving around the place. I never know if the driver is just out for a look or casing the grounds. The other day I ran into a man looking for âdeer hornsâ. He had this walking stick and was feeling around the ground with it when I ran into him. From what he told me, itâs possible to find eight point buck antlers from time to time. There is a large herd of deer on the grounds and, I guess, the deer shed their antlers on a seasonal basis.

I know about the deer because they are the reason Pennhurst is infested with ticks in the warm months. Iâve had to spend hours pulling the little bloodsuckers off my dog after exiting. And thatâs another reason to be careful if you venture into Pennhurst: Lymeâs Disease.

The picture I have posted at the top of todayâs entry is of the old steam plant. When I first discovered the Lost City of Pennhurst ten years ago, the plant was still in operation. It was shut down sometime later. I donât know why. Up close it looks like something out of RESIDENT EVIL.

First set of entries

pennhurst@verizon.net — Tue, 31 Jan 06 16:20:00 UT

1/25/06

I talked yesterday with the facilities manager at Pennhurst. It seems that, with the price of copper going up, it's now worthwhile for some people to sneak into the older buildings to steal copper wiring. This is what accounts for the many "No Trespassing" and "No Hunting" signs all over the grounds. Wonderful. I suppose if the price of granite should go sky-high, cemeteries would have to post guards.

So take a clue and DO NOT go tramping around Pennhurst for your school project or Goth album shoot. The abandoned buildings are dangerous, unsound, and contaminated with lead paint.

1/26/06

Today I had a chance to walk the dog around most of the lower campus. Itâs astonishing what a few years can do to these nineteenth century structures. Most of the roofs are caving in on the large buildings. You canât even see the campus area itself from the river side of the road; itâs that overgrown. Also, it looks like the facilities people have done their part to limit access to the campus itself by blocking most of the walkways and roads into it with trees and brush. The whole place still looks like some post-apocalyptic movie set.

Didnât see too many of the vultures that are nesting on the grounds. A few of them were flying overhead, but not âvenues of vulturesâ.

1/28/06

Went up to the maintance shed side of the lower campus. There is an access road that leads through this area, so that is not as hard to do as you might imagine. Itâs in terrible shape up there. In the former parking lot there is an old school bus on blocks which I assume is what the fire company uses for training. The steel grates are up on the maintance shop, allowing anyone who wishes to walk in and take whatever they want. Iâve decided not to show pictures of obvious examples of vandalism, other than broken windows. But I will mention them, such as the busted-up CRT monitors that litter the front of the maintance shed.

Didnât see any vultures today, but did spot a black cat bouncing around.