4,537 Comments for Pennhurst State School

I was in this room... well as far as the doorway, but I knew it from this photo. I've been doing a lot of research on Pennhurst and have almost become obsessed. I can't wait to get back there to do more exploring. Good thing I don't live pretty close to it!

There is a definite forboding to the area around Pennhurst , even though there is the armored guard and the Vet. Hospital within walking proximity. I don't know if any of the buildings are even in good enough shape to restore. The main and back drives up to the facility are so overgrown and hard to reach that once you come up upon Pennhurst itself it is almost like this huge ruin in the middle of nowhere. I wonder why after all of these years it is still standing. I remember as a child we would have to drive up to pick my Grandmother up from work and the more functional of the residents were outside taking in the air, going for walks, etc. I was only ever in the administrative building, but back in the early 70s it was ver hospital like in comparison to the pictures on this site which just make it look teriffying, which I am sure in some situations it was. What must have been difficult for alot of these people was the way they were put into group homes after being in Pennhurst their entire lives. There were 3 gentlemen that lived on my block when I was growing up who spent their entire life in Pennhurst and they were fully functioning adults who loved to talk to anyone who would say hello to them. I think that they were and even considered themselves outcasts. I think that if they do anything with Pennhurst that it would be a wonderful to open a part of the facility as a memorial to the people who lived, worked and died here.

Here's to true urban explorers such as Motts....Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints. It really disturbs me to see or hear about people like phantom who rapes these site for nothing more than a trophy that they can make a lamp out of. I love your work Motts. You have documented a great many beautiful buildings that have been left to nothing more than the weathering ,and most of the time, cruel hands of time. I congradulate you. Keep doing what you are doing. I am so glad to have stumbled upon your site.

Casualties of the microchip revolution... strange to think that every office in the world was full of these not so long ago.

And maybe you're right Autumn Twin. Your comment made me think of a girl (I'll call her 'Amy') in the admin section of the office where I work, who has a moderate to severe learning impairment (she's in her early twenties but is very 'naive' and has the demeanour and many of the thought processes of a twelve year-old). Nevertheless Amy can understand and carry out many of the tasks in the office, occasionally needing help which co-workers are all too happy to provide. She's also a great person who never fails to brighten my day with her genuine, friendly conversation and witty observations. Amy is living proof that with the right training, a learning disability doesn't always have to mean a life half-lived in an institutional setting.

Some wonder why she's working with us rather than being 'looked after' (in other words, locked-up) somewhere but IMO working in a regular environment, no matter how seemingly menial the job, has granted her a degree of financial independence as well as no doubt boosting her confidence, whilst hopefully also challenging some of the myths and prejudices held by some 'normal' colleagues who would otherwise rarely come into contact with people like Amy through choice. It's awful that it wasn't always the case, but I'm just so glad that nowadays there are community based programmes and help available to make sure that people aren't merely written off before they have chance to realise their potential, whatever that may be.

So one can hope that maybe these innocuous-looking machines once represented much more - a way out of Pennhurts for some of its 'clients' ....

Uh, Ratio? I worked in group homes in Pennsylvania for years, and we were NOT ALLOWED to be abusive in any way. We had inspections and coordinators, and someone was always "Popping In". We couldn't even look at our clients cross-eyed (slight exaggeration there). You could get fired in an instant, not to mention there was the threat of prosecution. Have you worked for the State recently (in the past 15 years?). The guidelines are pretty darned strict now.

It is all in your head.

Closeby there are other comments on this site from people who also worked at Pennhurst and claimed it wasn't all that bad. Maybe the word 'worked' is important here. it would be interesting to know the truth about the place but if a court case and God-only knows how many testimonies couldn't uncover it, maybe it will never be fully known.

The thought that some of the people in the place were 'fully-functioning' is very scary and depressing - even if it was the happiest institution on earth surely they shouldn't have been there! But I've heard it was once not so difficult to get a badly-behaved child or an oddball teenager sent to one of these places.

Perhaps this place should not be bulldozed for a parking lot or a Walmart, but be opened to the public as a museum and memorial, a reminder of terrible times past. And maybe, as Lynne has said, a section on modern standards of care and techniques should be included - to make it clear that this place represents a period in history and not the way things are done now... but also as a warning as to the results of a lack of funding and unhealthy social attitudes towards those who are different and feared.

Looks like a person in a red t-shirt clear across the other side of that room with his back to the camera to me. Definitely one of Motts's people, he just won't admit it, coz he knows how much this is driving everyone up a wall. Come on, bud. It's been two months now since all these comments started. What gives?

Yep, we've been through a lot. Gallows humor is our way of coping with some of the sadness and pain. Keeps the nightmares away. Oh! How we sometimes NEED to laugh at funerals, too.

Clown masks? Why clown masks? Clowns are creepy enough as it is. Creepy clown masks in a creepy place...

My Grandmother and Great Aunt both worked here for years and I can tell you that both were loving and caring women. They worked mostly with the men or boys as they used to call them....there were alot of caring individuals that cared for the people at Pennhurst, but from their stories they caring were outweighed by the terrifying people that abused the people who lived there. This was not an easy place to work because my Grandmother would leave work and come home and she would comment that the boys in her ward were almost shell-shocked when she returned. God knows what happened to them when she was at home. She worked many hours without pay because she hated leaving them. Thank God this and other placed like this are no longer in use.

The armored guard is there as is the veteran's hospital, but they don't shoot on sight. I grew up in the same town that Pennhurst is in and many ex-residents lived in my town all fully functioning adults that spent thier entire childhood locked up in this horrible place. It is a truly terrifying place to drive up to then and now even more so with all of the overgrown circles and different driveways into and out of the original buildings. Very scary...I would never venture up there without uttering some sort of cleansing prayer.

It's interesting how curtains in these places seem to do much better than the walls, the floors, the ceilings....

I still hate them. And I don't like attics either.

last february my friend and i uncovered that ladder from the rubble and put it up against the projection booth, and cut my hand in the process.