4,537 Comments for Pennhurst State School

These tunnels where used to transport patients on rainy days or the patients that where for any reason unable to be outside. The usage of these tunnels where actually stopped due to staff and patients being assaulted.

My mother worked here for years, and she was actually noted to be a "Queen to patients. She use to stand by them and she fought for years to be a patient advocate before there were such people. I was able to learn a lot about Pennhurst and other hospitals like them. There are a lot of terrible things that happened there, however there was also a lot of good. These places aloud patients that would normally be tossed off as "retards" to have a self worth. They upkept the grounds and assisted with staff. My father recently passed away, there where 7 patients from this faciltiy that showed up to the funeral to wish my mother the best of luck.

PS-My mother never turned in her keys, so I now have access to the grounds but do not know how to get in and out with out having security.

This shot give me vertigo.
Motts, you are an extraordinary artist!
Me want book!

Yay! I'm half Hungarian too!
This is one of my fav pics btw.

You are kidding, right????

those tunnels are insanely scary sometimes... why werent the parents aloud to see where their kids lived? didn't they pay for them to go there afterall???

i was just in this building today...a little creepy... its got underground tunnels and it is SO dirty now... there's seriously like a half inch of dirt that fell from the ceiling on the floor...

Well, that hospital won't be Byberry. Today's Inquirer reported that Byberry is being torn down and the property being developed into housing and office space. Byberry had 23 buildings with 1.5 million square feet of space!

is it just me or does that wood look sorta new? Everything else is dusty but that wood looks clean.

Well, at the time they LEFT them there, they could have given them to someone else to use!

Such a crying shame, waste!

I love staircase pictures, for some reason. Lovely!!

We need a chair at the end of this hallway. Thanks for your comment, Ilaynay, you took the words right out of my mouth.

these pictures remind me how far we have come with the treatment of our mentally challenged individuals and how far we still have to go!

Here we go again!