4,537 Comments for Pennhurst State School

There's an old frame! It's probably solid steel and weighs a ton!

After the maintenance and temperature controls cease in these kinds of big buildings it doesn't take long for the paint to peel like that. Nature takes its course quite quickly.
Even if buildings are successfully sealed from vandals, the elements still have their way with the structure. I'm sure Motts can attest to this!

A lot of chronically homeless people are pretty strange characters. They don't necessarily share the same perspectives on the physical world as you and I, Bella!

Beautiful work with light and shadow. Very crisp and stark image.

RedDragon,
I would have thought ALL electricity to the joint was cut off long ago. Perhaps there was one connection they neglected to cut. I know fluorescents last a long time, but we're talking 20 years!

Falling trees is my first thought. Although where those trees are now if they fell after the institution was abandoned, or why the railings weren't repaired if it happened before, I couldn't tell you...

Looks like a human being seen through cloudy glass to me. In some of those panes you can see cracks and holes indicating that there *is* still glass there. I have no idea what y'all are on about with the coming through the window pane bit.

Agreed about the platform at the top, but one presumes that a therapist would have been on hand to help with the therapy. I imagine they would have "spotted" the patient, holding the patient's hand as the stairs were climbed? (Of course, I guess you can never tell given the other stories I've heard about the neglect at Pennhurst...)

Looks like the vegetation in the foreground just happening to get in the way of the windows to me. Motts--I love your photography, but unfortunately your visitors seem entirely too determined to find ghosts in it even when there are perfectly logical mundane explanations for what they're seeing...

With all due respect... If you look at the picture with the intent of finding some sort of ghostly figure, yes, you'll see just that. I urge people to remember that not every odd shape and shadow is a shadow figure or a mysterious face! Something beyond the window which we can't see clearly could easily be causing an odd shadow that sort of looks like it could maybe be a face, and the shadow figure has already been explained.

It's my impression that there were far, far worse things happening at Pennhurst than simply being allowed to just sit and stare out a window. Seems an odd thing to complain about, really, in light of the rest of the abuse and neglect. I'm sure some of those kids would rather have been staring out a window.

...Not to mention, the chair might not have been in that position the last time someone sat in it. ;)

Dude... I think you guys are looking too hard, or maybe I just don't have enough imagination. I don't see a shadow figure, or a child, or anything like that. The thing at the bottom left of the window just looks like a big pillow to me. (Although I guess the photographer has said it's just the vulture, time-exposed, anyway. But it doesn't even look like a person at all to me.)

But anyway. I agree, beautiful shot, no matter what the thing is!

Too much CSI, much of which is bunk anyway. ;-) At old institutions or other abandoned buildings you get this junk running down the walls after a while. Hell, I've dated a few guys who had walls suspiciously like these . . . It's some combination of dirt, smog, oxidation, and mold over the years mixed with condensation, which, when dripping down the walls, looks pretty tacky. You'll notice the consistency of where it starts, the width/length of the trails, etc. Blood spatters are much more individualized and depend on where the victim was popped, how hard s/he was hit, etc. My guess is that these are a nasty light yellow/gray/brown color. Also, and if these were blood spatters there would be a line where the blood was diverted by the grab bars in the showers. :-)

...remove FUNNY BONE!!

(sorry, did anyone else have an 'operation' game as a kid?)

Yea, cheer for the home team!!

Kind of sad that they didn't even let them out for exercise...