Comments
I hope it was a natural death. The thought of someone harming a cat is sickening.
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Buildings 136 & 137 (Medical-Surgical)
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Buildings 136 & 137 (Medical-Surgical)
- Location: Bennett School for Girls (view comments)
- Gallery: Close Calls
- Location: Bennett School for Girls (view comments)
- Gallery: Close Calls
- Location: Bennett School for Girls (view comments)
- Gallery: Close Calls
I grew up across the street from this building. I looked out the front windows of our home and saw it rising up from that ultra steep hill. That incline served as a great snow sledding location for years. I learned to ride my bike on the circular concrete walk that was on the southwestern lawn, to ice skate on the golfcourse ponds behind the theater. I explored the buildings as only a child can- finding treasure in the hallways after the women had gone home for the summer. Learned my climbing skills- on the stone work and huge trumpet vines that made up the south wall- which later would stand in good favor when I taught mountain rescue in the German Alps. I remember when all th traffic used to go around the Bennett circle, before the road was cut through the hill to the south and bypassed the road through Bennett. After that road was finished, the corner store located on the circle went under. I remember all the cool houses that the college provided for the teachers- each different, old and character filled. Nostalgia and memories, that is what that hugh edifice represents for me.
My father taught there from '62-'72, so this is really a piece of my life being torn down. I won't be the first person to loose something that is dear to them, but it still stings. What really strikes me as odd, it just how rapidly it has happened. I am not that old. When I see pictures of the two houses that sat north of the presidents house, the de la Volpes and the one of the wonderful single older woman teachers , the place where we watched the Millbrook fireworks- all in disrepair, it looks like they have been vacant for a century, not less than 30 years. Why ....that is all I'm wondering. I'm not going to imply subterfuge, that has been done better, in other places on this thread, but lordy.
Another thing that needs saying is that Bennett was for women. This was a place of independence- some of whom were ahead of their time with regards to what women could accomplish. It broke some of the molds and supported independence. I was there in the sixties, so there were all sorts of stories of the more adventurous students spending time with the good Dr. Leary, located just north of town.
The biggest question is where were all the alumni? I had babysitters who are now 30 years into their soap opera starring runs. Not everybody who went to Bennett was from a wealthy family , but I do know Francesca Hilton is an alum, as was one of the bridesmaids in Lucy Bird Johnson's wedding. I'm almost certain that a Bennett education helped some of these women succeed in a monetary fashion. If not residents of Millbrook, why not these graduates? I've never seen a school so ignored by alums that most probably have gone onto fairly lucrative professions.
Anyhow. I'm just venting. Like I said, I've been following this for years, hoping for a change in the status and doing nothing about it except watch. For that, I had a hand in this as well.
I can be reached at pj1550@hotmail.com
- Location: Bennett School for Girls (view comments)
- Gallery: Close Calls
>.<
- Location: Glenn Dale Hospital (view comments)
- Gallery: Vines
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Building 93 (Infirmary)
inhabitants and when they have all gone the
building dies a little
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Building 93 (Infirmary)
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Building 93 (Infirmary)
- Location: Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry) (view comments)
- Gallery: Sunlight
- Location: Undercliff State Hospital (view comments)
- Gallery: Secret Things
- Location: Philadelphia State Hospital (Byberry) (view comments)
- Gallery: Sunlight
- Location: Kings Park Psychiatric Center (view comments)
- Gallery: Group 2 and Some Building 93 Exteriors
Yikes! Lighten up whoever wrote that lol