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