Pennhurst State School: The time I actually went in. 

A few weeks had past since my first encounter with the abandoned asylum Pennhurst.  The vast ruins of the complex taunted me relentlessly from my day job in Philadelphia.  Knowing an abandoned complex of school and dorms not only in much better shape than Byberry, but easier to gain access to was getting too much for me to bear, I had to go back.  I was showing the few pictures I had gotten on the first trip to some of my co-workers, some were intrigued, others disturbed. 

“So how’s the abandoned insane asylum hunt going?” one of my friendly coworkers said.  “Fine… I’m planning on spending the night or maybe a few nights and I want to use the electro shock machine.”  That was my usual response.  Usually I heard rumors that I worshipped Satan at Byberry, I really like exploring that’s my reason for doing this, I like history and scary abandoned places.  I’m not really a scary guy. 

          Luckily these rumors were overheard by a temp worker fresh from college.  He told me of these twins that were in a photography class he took his last year of college.  He told me that these girls had taken pictures inside this abandoned mental institution.  They said they never were caught and managed to have a great knowledge of the entire place from going there so many times.   The place is near Ursinus College where he went to school. 

 I think I may have shocked him when I asked if he knew how to get in contact with them.  He said he would have their email somewhere and if he could find it he would give it to me.  I was very excited to have someone actually give me a tour of the whole facility even though it was a slim chance I still couldn’t sleep the night before. 

The next day the temp gave me an email address and said, “It’s either the email of Abigail or Penelope, but I’m sure they will be happy to help.”  This is why temp workers are great.  They are so full of information.  I fired off an email which explained who I was and what I wanted to do.   I waited for a few days before I received a response. 

The twins were fine with showing me around Pennhurst, but I would have to meet them in a public location first and would not be allowed to show their faces in any of my pictures.  I agreed and we set a date for Saturday morning.  We met in a small diner in Collegeville (Yes Ursinus college is in Collegeville PA… go figure.)

 I wasn’t sure what these twins looked like but I saw some normal looking college aged twins.   I was half expecting some crazy looking Goth type kids who hung out in cemeteries, but these were nice average looking girls.    They must have seen the confusion on my face because they waved me over to their table pretty quickly.

We introduced ourselves and I ordered some food. Abigail was on the left and Penelope was on the right.   “So why do you want to go into Pennhurst?”  Abigail asked.  “I want to check it out; it seems like a cool place to explore.  Come on, it’s an abandoned asylum, what’s not to like about that.”   “True” She responded as though she was grading my answer.  Penelope chirped up “You know it’s illegal to trespass on the grounds of this place and it has been abandoned for quite some time the place is in ruins, peeling paint, rotting floors and it’s pretty scary.”  She started sounding annoyed.   “I understand it can be” Abigail seemed content with me “OK if you are ready to go, we need to check your supplies.”

Outside the diner, I opened the trunk of my car and showed some rope, flashlights and a backpack full of film and some water.  “What type of supplies do I need?” I asked. Penelope responded  “ Nothing really except some water, I was just seeing if you had a chainsaw or dead bodies in your trunk, now I feel safer.”

We piled into my car and headed off to Pennhurst.  I was really getting excited because I felt this time I was going to be inside this massive ruin with people who were not afraid of being inside an abandoned asylum.   Abigail was riding shotgun and telling me where to turn, “We’ll park in town and walk up through the woods.”  “Most people get caught because they park their car too close to the buildings and the security will wait by your car.” Penelope explained from the back seat. 

We parked on a side street, which seemed too far from Pennhurst, but Abigail told me it wasn’t too far from the street we were parking on.   I got out my camera and backpack and followed the twins through the woods.   It seemed they knew exactly where they were going.  I was following them very closely and I really couldn’t tell you how far into the woods we were when seemingly out of nowhere there was a bridge. 

This stone bridge we came across had trees growing out of it that were years old, you almost didn’t notice the sides of the bridge because of the overgrowth.  The bridge was still in remarkable shape but obviously had no one taking care of this bridge for years.   I wanted to check the abandoned stone bridge out for a little bit, but the twins kept going on there’s so much here they said pointing to the fire hydrant in the woods.

We were on some sort of path into Pennhurst that hadn’t been maintained in at least 20 years.  As we started seeing the tops of the buildings there appeared a set of stairs that came out of nowhere.  A few feet ahead of us were the back entrance of Pennhurst's gym and theatre.  

“Come on,” Penelope said “You have to check out the movie projector.”  We went through the open back door.  There was a board wedged in between them and we walked through the stairwell and the door there was propped open as if it were welcoming us in. 

Through the door there were desks arranged as if a class had been there only a few hours before.  Further back in the gym was a basketball hoop and pummel horse and parallel bars covered with dust and paint chips falling for the ceiling.

 Paint from the ceilings and wall was chipping off everywhere, it left a solid covering of paint chips on the floors that gave a loud crunch every time you took a step.  It was nerve wracking at first, since you are exploring a place you are not allowed to go into I thought being quiet was something you would want to do.  It was very loud walking on those paint chips and it was very dusty everywhere you looked. 

We walked clear through the gym and up the steps to the theater.  Walking into Pennhurst’s theater was impressive.  It was your average middle school type of auditorium in your average abandoned mental institution.  The floor seemed in very bad condition, was covered with pieces of the ceiling.  The stage was in decent condition and there was a really nice looking organ next to the stage.  One of the creepiest things I witnessed was the clown bean bag toss on the stage.  It seemed so ominous in this place.  Very creepy.  The whole time I have just been in awe of the entire place.  I was just following the twins around and snapping pictures. 

The back of the theater had a set of stairs that led up to a storage room and a huge movie projector.  It was immense.  I was amazed that for sitting empty so long it looked in good condition.  This was a projector that had to have been from the fifties or sixties.  It was amazing that this was still here and that they didn’t have an amazing mental institution yard sale when the state closed it down.  The site out of the projection room was a great chaotic scene with debris scattered all throughout the floor and that demonic clown looking back at us.  It was one of the neatest sites I have ever seen. 

Penelope warned me as we were walking down the steps toward the doors, “The part of Pennhurst that is still in use is to the left of this building.  We must be quick and look out for security if we want to make it to the main grounds.”  This was total A-Team.  I was loving it.  We made our way out the front of the gymnasium/ auditorium.  We had some covering from the evergreen trees on the front grounds.

Looking through the trees we could see a large truck and there were some sounds of people I didn’t see anyone, but you could sense that there was something going on.  We all got quiet.  Then Abigail yelled,”GO!”  I have to admit I was scared as if they were going to shoot at us so I ran pretty fast, which was a funny enough site to the twins because they started laughing hard when we got to the safety of the woods again.

I was out of breath and not in the mood to be made fun of.  The fact I am a little out of shape was not going to deter me from viewing the great buildings that were in this forest I now entered.  This place really shocked me.  I guess you can say it took my breath away.  It was one thing to see this place from a car, but to be in the woods right next to them was awe inspiring. 

This was the thing dreams (nightmares) are made of.  Going through the woods and coming across these abandoned buildings that are huge and open to explore. Seeing nature trying to reclaim these brick buildings was a great site.  I often wondered why they didn’t open this place to the public.  I know I would’ve paid money to see this.  

The twins were done with their laughing fit and asked a question I was not prepared for. “What did you want to see?” Abigail asked.  I hadn’t really thought about it.  “I …hhmm. I just want to go inside” I managed to say.  “OK” Penelope responded as though she was thinking I was way nuts.  “In this building there are some offices and storage.”

Once again I followed the twins into another one of Pennhurst’s buildings.  I was still shocked by the fact this place was wide open for anyone to go into.  The door was propped open and we walked into the stairwell.  We went upstairs and I was confronted with the first realization of the fact that this place was a long forgotten hospital.

A long corridor with doctor offices on either side, beside the peeling paint and empty cork board it felt as though it was just left recently.  Entering the first room it was creepy to say the least.  It was a feeling of missing something.  I can’t really explain it, but it felt like we just missed something happening.  The room was in decent shape and there was a display on the wall that looked like a poster display in a music shop.  I guess they used it for charts to teach people health. 

The rest of the rooms in this medical building were similar to this one a few had books in the closets.  The one that really gave me chills was the last room I went into.  I was looking around at the peeling paint and a few photos on the ground and I noticed the sink still had soap on the ledge.  That was enough of that building. 

Quickly making an exit from the building with the haunted soap I met up with the twins who were emphatically puffing away on their clove cigarettes.  They seemed to be acting in unison and gave a very surreal feel to the entire experience, as though being in the center of an abandoned mental institution complex next to a pool with trees growing out of it was not surreal enough.  I was hoping they would start communicating to me with their minds. 

“We are taking a little smoke break.” Penelope said.  I double checked to make sure her mouth was moving.  “Yeah, I guess you can’t smoke in government buildings anymore.” I replied and got that look of “Oh dear god why is he so lame?”  I made my way around the courtyard and snapped some pictures of the buildings.

 Abigail took a huge drag and exhaled, “Unfortunately we can’t stay here all day we have things to do.  Is there any place we can show you?”  I hadn’t realized we had been walking through for almost 2 hours now and I wanted to stay for days to see everything.  I don’t know why I said this but I replied, “What’s the scariest place?”  They both smiled and crushed their cigarettes on their boots and said “Come on.” motioning me with their hands.

I am not sure why I wanted to see the scariest thing in this place when I was scared of a little piece of soap, but when in a scary abandoned place I figured I might as well see the best of the best. 

We went down the outside steps to a basement corridor.  It was pitch dark.  The corridor seemed to stretch out forever.  I brought out my flashlight and was scared immediately.  Some doors were opened.  Not invitingly, but more in a daring way.  I have never before nor since experienced a menacing door.  This was totally the real scary deal.  Following the twins, who had no flashlights and were navigating through the subtle light from either end of the corridor.  These girls were amazing. 

The corridor opened up on the left side into this huge room.  There were gurneys, wheelchairs and cribs everywhere.  This was breath taking.  I was half expecting the wheels to start moving and screeching along towards me and I would have to run through the darkened corridor with the evil doors flapping trying to have their way with me.  I was able to take a few pictures and made my way back down the corridor toward the light.  “I want to see some dorms before we have to leave.” I stated, really just to get out of there. 

“The end of this hall will lead us out to the entrance of a dormitory.” Abigail (?) said in the darkness.   When we came to the end of the hall, a wheelchair and gurney welcomed us to a stairwell that was covered in debris.  It looked as though the roof and most of the building was on top of the stairwell and the steps were covered to the top with dust and paint chips.  It almost felt like a trap.  There was no way out. To go back through the corridor with those menacing doors and past the room of demonic wheelchairs and the cribs was the only way out.  The cribs seemed to be the worst.  They just had the worst sense of dread when you looked at them.   It was just not a good sight.

The dim light from the other side of the corridor seemed very, very far away. 

I believe we made it out of there in record time.  I was leading and really not spending much time to look over things.  I was just focused on getting to the other end and the light which was my salvation.  Once back into the daylight (out of hell) I was very relieved and excited again.  Looking around the courtyard to the empty eyes of long forgotten buildings put me in a slightly better mood.  

“Where to next?” Abigail asked.  “I guess here” I pointed to the building to my left.  Abigail gave no response and we ventured into another ghost of a building.   “This one has a really creepy basement too.” Penelope warned.  Oh great I thought if it’s worse than the wheelchairs and all of that crazy stuff I might just have to leave. 

We walked into the building the first site I saw really fascinated me.  The drop ceiling had rotted away and the original 1908 arches could be seen.  This place must have been majestic when it was first built.   This place must have been an occupational therapy building, because there were typewriters and adding machines on cabinets.  It was amazing to see these things that had been left years ago when the place was shut down. 

“Come on down to the basement.” Penelope said from behind me. “Turn on the flashlight and follow me.”  I followed her down the steps and through a closed door.  It was completely dark in here.  When I turned on the flashlight, I was standing in a hallway that for some reason the walls were completely covered in wavy fabric.  I had no idea why they would be covered, but the walls looked like waves.  I touched the wall; it was solid and still had no understanding of what I was looking at.  “It’s all warped from moisture” Abigail informed me.

Then the walls made sense to me.  It was very surreal.  One of the most unexpected things about this trip was finding this wavy room in Pennhurst.  It was very trippy.   I entered the first room on the right and I was in a kitchen sinks and cabinets even a fake window with nice curtains still attached.  I thought I was in an apartment set up for therapy but as we walked through the door into the next room I saw that this was the break room for employees. 

The little interoffice mail boxes were still there and a table that still had magazines from the 1980’s on them.  There was a huge pile of magazines and reading material that even had a sign asking people to put things back.. A cigarette machine was on the one side, no there were no cigarettes in there.  Would you smoke cigarettes from a place abandoned over 20 years ago?

 In the back corner of the break room there was a loom stored in an open room.  It didn’t look usable in the position it was in, someone must have moved it there with the intent on moving it back somewhere else.

This is why most of the Pennhurst places are creepy.  It is as though people just got up and left.  When the older state institutions were closed it seems no one went in to clean these places out.  I guess it’s just government problems with getting things done.  It seems a waste to abandon wheelchairs, desks or anything else that could help someone else.    It was this feeling that I took into the next building we went to for the day. 

We traveled back down the wavy hallway and out to the back of the building, which was next to some of the dormitories.  Going into the dorms we could hear footsteps in the halls.  It was very scary, but the girls seemed uninterested.  “Some other people are around.” Abigail said.  “Security?” I asked. “No just explorers” she replied.  Hearing the footsteps in the stairwell, but no voices was a very creepy way to start into this building. 

We started on the first floor on the left was a bathroom with the stalls long since removed.   It was in surprisingly good condition, since I would expect the toilets would have been fun for people to break.  They would make a nice sound.  

On the right was a storage room that was full of boxes and some pieces of furniture, but still had tattered blue curtains on the windows.  Down the hall was the common room which was wide open and still had some artwork on the wall.  I had heard that in these state institutions they would put fabric on frames to hang and make the places look nice.  I am so amazed I actually got to see on in real life.  In the far corner of the room up on the top of the wall was a piece of framed fabric hung on the wall. 

The rest of the common room had chairs and some other artwork on the walls.  It looked in very nice condition. There was even a tape player that was still plugged in and on a shelf on the wall. In the back corner of the common room was a nurse’s station that still had a few ravaged desks and views into the main room and what seemed to be an isolation room.  Besides the peeling paint all over the floor it was in very decent shape.  

We exited the nurses’ station and went down the hall toward the stairwell and proceeded up the steps to the actual sleeping rooms.  We entered the hall and saw a large room to the right that was full of clutter and debris.  The windows were broken and there was a bed sitting on an angle facing to us.  There were these giant smiley face stickers on the bed frame.  There were pillows and paint everywhere in the other room there were still names on the dividers and records and some pictures on the ground.  The whole place now had a feeling of people who were cast out were once again being cast out of the only place they might have felt like  home.  I really started to feel a compassion for the people who were sent to these state schools.  This is they lived and died.  There was a calming feeling that came over me.  The twins were ready to leave and they wanted to go right then.

I asked for them to show me two more buildings and we’d run through them.  They agreed to show me the children’s ward and the administration building, but we’d have to go fast and right then.  We headed out to the children’s ward which looked pretty similar to the other dorms.  The one room must have been the large activities room. A mural was painted on the wall and the bulletin board still had activity sheets.  The floor was covered in paint chips and a stuffed doll was sitting all alone.  A shiver of creepiness went down my spine.  How could a child grow up in an institution?  That made me feel sad.  The next thing I saw was a coloring book and bowl of crayons that looked waiting for it’s owner to return in any moment.  I was actually getting very aware of the fact I was in a children’s ward of an abandoned state institution.  The air seemed very thick.   I thought I was the only one getting this vibe, however, Abigail was acting anxious to get out of there.  

We took the hallway to the stairwell.  We moved a little quicker now and I became increasingly aware of a feeling that I did not want to be inside this long forgotten place any longer.  As Penelope reached the bottom of the stairs and looked down the tunnel connecting us to the administration building she froze.  Abigail and I caught up a few seconds later and both stopped dead.

We both realized what had stopped her.  There was a single light bulb burning midway down the hallway.  I know electricity flows through some of Pennhurst, but this was just too creepy.  This was enough.  We all made the decision that was the time to go.   Penelope was very spooked and wanted to go out to the main road through the campus.  That was a great idea to me because I would get to go past the administration building and snap some pictures of the tower. 

Abigail stopped at the main road turned around and said, “That’s why we shouldn’t go into that building.” I didn’t understand what she was talking about but I looked and took a picture of the side of the administration building.   We walked the long way back to the car and the conversation was pretty light since I was darn tired. 

“I hope you are not going to be late for whatever it is you need to do.” I asked, just to break the silence.  “We don’t have anything to do.” Penelope said “It’s just in these abandoned places there are spirits of people who lived and died there.  Sometimes they do not like it when you are there.”  This was a little too much for me and I kind of let it show in my face. 

Abigail noticed this and in a little angry tone informed me, “The administration building has the meanest one, I call him “George”.  He is trapped in the administration building and is trying to find a file to get him out of there.” 

“He told you this?” I asked.

“Yes, but not really to me, he was talking loudly in another room.  I don’t know if he was talking to me, but he was definitely talking I heard him. I know it sounds nuts, but I saw him in the 2^nd floor front window of the Administration building today.  That is why I said we shouldn’t go in there.” She finished rather smugly.

“Well I didn’t see anything, but I was feeling weird.” I said.  We were pretty much silent for the rest of the ride.  Pulling up into the apartment complex the twins lived in, I was really tired and excited to sit and think about all the wonderful and scary things I saw at Pennhurst.   We exchanged the normal “see you later” pleasantries and went our separate ways. 

Once I had the pictures I went over them many times to see the things I went through.  It’s a little too much to take in while you are there.   It was nice to take the time to really look at the things I might have missed.  I found the last picture I took of the administration building.  In the top corner, where Abigail claims she saw her friend “George” (The evil ghost of Pennhurst), there appears to be some light. 

I don’t know what it is, but it is a little interesting that she said she saw something there and the picture seems to have an orb.  I never saw the twins again, we made plans to go back for a second trip through Pennhurst together.  Winter weather was not good for exploring ruins and  then the summer overgrowth makes finding the abandoned buildings a needle in the haystack type of problem.

These pictures were taken in 2001.  Pennhurst had a fire in the summer of 2007, I do not know the extent of the damage to the old buildings.  I also heard the state has had other plans for the Pennhurst grounds, I would suggest a perpetual ruin museum like the Eastern State Penitentiary, but the state let it decay for 20 some years so I doubt they would do anything with those buildings. 

Going through the Pennhurst State School ruins was one of the scariest things and coolest things I ever got to do.  It’s been six years since I have been there and it still gives me chills.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.