NBC 10 Philadelphia did a two-minute piece on the Pennhurst Asylum controversy. Although the piece was pretty much another advertising endorsement for the attraction, at least the word is getting out there. Let people make up their own minds. Here's the link: Haunted House at Pennhurst Causes Outrage. I certainly didn't see much outrage in it. Greg Pirmann, senior vice president of the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance, had about three seconds on camera; most of the footage is promotional video from the Pennhurst Asylum's web site. Hard to believe this is the same station that broke story of conditions at Pennhurst back in 1968 with Bill Baldini's Suffer the Little Children. You can watch a segment of the expose at the NBC 10 link above.

I'm also including a link to an online petition against the attraction: Petition. Take the time to sign up.

Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels announced Friday that the company would not file a new reorganization plan with the bankruptcy court after all, preferring to continue negotiations with creditors. "“Since last week, we have been involved in discussions with our various creditor constituencies about our restructuring plan,” CEO Randy Michaels and COO Gerry Spector wrote in an email to employees Friday afternoon. “Given the ongoing nature of those discussions, we have decided not to file any amendments to our plan at the present time. We’ll continue to keep you aware of developments in the Chapter 11 process as we go forward.”

The statement came after rumors circulated that former Disney CEO Michael Eisner was being courted by Tribune's creditors as the company's new leader.

Check out the following articles for more info: Bloomberg, Tribune post-bankruptcy, The Wrap, LATimes.

The Pottstown Mercury article today was a big disappointment—I guess the editors thought that if they wrote an editorial opposing the attraction than they could let the news article be a ringing endorsement for the "Pennhurst Asylum." The editor, who is not attributed, expresses his dismay that the "only horror in the Pennhurst Asylum is that it is proposed to start business in just a few short weeks, and no one is trying to stop it." Gosh, is that true? No one is trying to stop it? Then why did the Easter Seals make Randy Bates take down their logo from his Web site? You mean no one has been writing about this or issuing public statements against it? No one has made calls to the East Vincent Township authorities to check on building permits and asbestos removal? No one has checked with the Environmental Protection Agency to find out if the asbestos was removed properly? Indeed. One can only wonder where this editor has been. At least the opposition has certainly gotten Randy Bates' daughter Angela Bates Majewski riled up, as you can see from the illustration to the right. Funny choice of word "morons" considering the subject matter...

The good thing about the Mercury story is that it's out on the wire (AP) and other newspapers are picking it up( http://kdka.com/wireapnewsfnpa/Opponents.decry.plan.2.1885291.html and http://www.ldnews.com/news/ci_15933466).

The argument going back and forth seems to be that those who are for the attraction say that the buildings will be preserved, so what's the harm? The opposition says that altering the buildings to fit a commercial for-profit venture is not preservation, it's desecration. Those "for" compare the Pennhurst Asylum to Eastern State Penitentiary's annual haunted house; the differences in the two ventures are glaringly obvious. ESP was a prison where violent criminals were rightly incarcerated away from society; the residents of Pennhurst were the innocent victims of society’s apathy and the state’s many failures. ESP is run by Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Inc., a nonprofit organization “with the sole purpose of preserving the Penitentiary and opening it for tours.” Pennhurst Asylum is run by a real estate developer willing to alter or raze the site for commercial profit. ESP was rescued by a group of architects, preservationists and historians, with the city of Philadelphia’s blessing. Pennhurst Asylum was…well, you get the idea.

Here's another NEWS FLASH: Pennhurst was NOT an insane asylum; Pennhurst was NOT a mental institution. Any attempt to cash in on the name is exploitation, pure and simple. The bottom line is that an attraction called the “Pennhurst Asylum” located on the Pennhurst campus and utilizing Pennhurst artifacts will naturally be associated with the history of Pennhurst. Anyone would be a fool to think otherwise. Here's a solution: Take Pennhurst out of the name, move the attraction out of the institutional buildings and put it in the superintendent's house or the doctors' residence and I don't think anyone would have a problem with it. If you can't or won't do that, then you are exploiting the name and the memory for your own profit.

Pennhurst has a long and often tragic history but the recent struggle over who will control the memory of the institution that over 10,500 people called home may be its biggest fight yet. Will the winner be the private owners of the Pennhurst campus who want to exploit the current "Urban Exploration" and ghost-hunting popularity of the site? Or will it be the preservation groups who want to make Pennhurst a "National Site of Conscience" to remind us of the battles fought by those with disabilities in the last century?

Opposition to the attraction is rising. A spokesman from Easter Seals Disability Services made Randy Bates remove the group's logo from the "Charity" page of his Web site http://www.pennhurstasylum.com.  Many other mental health professionals and disability groups have come out with statements alleging that the opening of any type of haunted amusement on the site is “offensive, demeaning, and unacceptable.” A statement on the home page of the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance puts it this way: “Once called the shame of the nation, Pennhurst was the epicenter of a civil and human rights movement that changed the way the world saw people with intellectual and developmental disabilities… Pennhurst stands as a monument not just to the despair of social apathy but more importantly to the bright triumph of an engaged citizenry--and the eternal hope that great change is possible from the cumulative efforts of caring people.  For these reasons it must be preserved.” 

Last week, a film crew directed by actor Michael Rooker shot scenes for “Pennhurst,” a horror movie starring Rooker, Haylie Duff and Beverly Mitchel, on the grounds of the former institution, cashing in on the site’s “haunted” reputation (a segment of The Travel Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” was filmed there in 2009). The film's synopsis reads: "The crew of a reality television show visits an abandoned psychiatric hospital to capture evidences of ghosts, and encounter more than they bargained for when something--or someone--sinister starts picking them off one by one." News flash: Pennhurst was not a psychiatric hospital. It was not an insane asylum. Site owner Richard Chakejian can't understand "why Easter Seals revoked their endorsement." Can it be that these guys just don't get it??

To be clear, I am not against haunted attractions; I just believe that placing one on the grounds of such a place of historic significance is incredibly impudent and exploitive. Pennhurst was a national story many times throughout its 80-year history; it should be a national story again, if only to remind us of what we did wrong in the past to those who were "not like us" and, perhaps, to keep us from making those same mistakes again.

Be sure to check out the Sunday, August 29 edition of the Pottstown Mercury to read more.

Since the "Pennhurst Asylum" haunted attraction is set to open in September, I sent the following letter to the editors of the newspapers in the Spring City area.

To the Editor;

     For the last eight months or so I have been gathering first-person documentation about the Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Spring City, Pa. The institution housed over 10,500 developmentally disabled people in the course of its eighty-year history. The stories and memories of those residents and the workers who cared for them are featured on my Web site, The Pennhurst Project, and will also be included in a video documentary I am producing. Those who lived and worked at Pennhurst have painted a picture for me that is both tragic and incredibly hopeful at the same time. The subject has special meaning to me as my grandfather’s half-sister Dolly Neiman spent seven years in Pennhurst after her family could no longer care for her at home.

     The treatment of the so-called “mentally retarded” during much of the last century was certainly barbaric when viewed through today’s standards of care. The system allowed for the mass warehousing of thousands of those deemed by society as “not like us” and television exposés like Bill Baldini’s 1968 “Suffer the Little Children” showed the viewing public for the first time what conditions were like at the overcrowded, underfunded and understaffed institution.  Despite the state’s many failures to improve conditions at Pennhurst, many of the workers I’ve talked with truly loved and cared for their clients and tried to do the best they could for them with limited resources. Even so, Pennhurst had a long history of negative press which culminated in the landmark Halderman vs. Pennhurst State School and Hospital lawsuit which eventually forced the institution to close in 1987.

     On September 24, 2010 Randy Bates, of the “Bates Motel” haunted attraction, will open a new haunted attraction called the “Pennhurst Asylum” on the site of the former institution. The attraction will attempt to exploit and distort the Pennhurst story to fit with the current “ghost hunter” craze and cash in on the same fears, ignorance and exclusionary mindsets that fueled the institutional movement in the first place. The attraction will feature actors portraying “scary psychos” and ticketholders will be deemed “patients.”

     Not only is this “attraction” in extreme poor taste but it is also a huge affront to the many thousands of Pennhurst residents and their families as well as to all those who fought on the front lines to gain equal rights for those with developmental and physical disabilities. They deserve our deepest respect, not the impudent ridicule that this attraction will foster.

     Bates claims that his venture does “not intend to mock [the] mentally handicapped in any way.” He goes on to state: “Our haunted attraction will not dwell on the sadness that was surrounded by this community, but will be a fictitious rendering that does not equate to a mentally handicapped facility.” One wonders how an attraction called the “Pennhurst Asylum” located on the Pennhurst campus cannot be equated to Pennhurst itself. He also claims the attraction will include a “museum” that will “acknowledge the issues that confronted the State in the late 70’s.” But the history page on the Pennhurst Asylum Web site contains numerous mistakes, historical inaccuracies, misspellings and grammatical errors which will render any such “museum” effort ridiculous.

     Bates has threatened that if there is any opposition to the event, “I assure you that all the buildings will be razed and Pennhurst will be forever forgotten.”

     Members of the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance have issued a statement on their Web site taking a stand against the proposed haunted attraction as described. The following is a portion of that statement: “Any entertainment at the expense of people's suffering is repulsive on its face and becomes more so, when there is no credible venue available for people to hear the true story. While we do not believe a haunted attraction is entirely unacceptable, the current available descriptions of the attraction are concerning. At this time, we must agree with the mental health professionals who have stated that the as-described proposed event insults and demonizes our fellow citizens who live with chronic mental illness and trivializes the conditions under which those persons continue to struggle in institutions across the world.” 

     This attraction as planned is wrong on so many levels that it is hard to know the best course of action but the first and most important thing must be to inform the public, which is the primary intent of this letter. The Spring/Ford community has a right to know what is being planned on the Pennhurst campus as the event will open to the public in less than six weeks.

Sincerely,

Betty E. Cauler