SPRING CITY, Pa. - Since the last residents left more than 20 years ago, Pennhurst State Hospital has been vacant, its sprawling complex of buildings crumbling, overcome by brush in the suburban Philadelphia countryside.
The old asylum might not be still much longer.
Alexander mcqueenIt's being filled with fake skeletons, hanging torsos, coffins, exam tables and other frightful things as new investors plan to begin redevelopment efforts by turning it into a haunted house set to open Friday.
The mental health community, which has long fought to preserve the hospital as a relic of the bygone era of institutionalization for people with mental disabilities - a reminder of history not to be repeated - is infuriated by the plan.
Alexander mcqueen Alexander mcqueen"I don't want to relive the hell that I went through of living in an institution," said Jean Searle, co-president of the Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance, who grew up in similar institutions but now lives on her own. "I want to try to forget."
In addition, a lawyer representing several neighbors near the East Vincent Township site filed a lawsuit Monday, asking a judge to stop the haunted house because organizers don't have proper zoning approval. A hearing is scheduled for ceramic bracelet watches Friday.
Built shortly after the turn of the 20th century, Pennhurst grew to as many as 3,600 residents by the 1960s. It was closed in 1987 in the wake of a lawsuit alleging years of abuse and neglect, legal action that spawned years of ceramic bracelet watches appeals and three U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The suit alleged that residents had been found beaten by nurses, strapped ceramic bracelet watches to beds, left naked or alone and drugged into stupors.
In 2008, a group of investors called Pennhurst Acquisition, led by businessman Richard Chakejian, bought the site from the state for $2 million.
The Pennhurst event will not incorporate the idea of an asylum or mental patients into its story lines, Chakejian said. There also will be separate rooms in which people can learn the history of Pennhurst and the pain that was endured there, he said.
Critics argue that a haunted house on the grounds of an asylum where great pain was endured is an affront to the many tens of thousands of people released from similar institutions nationwide since 1969.
The event, with an admission price of $25, is slated to start Friday and run on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights through Nov. 7.
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