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BY KATE DUFFY

In print | April 17, 2003

After failed expeditions to the prosthetic leg house and the nuclear missile site, Erik Osheim ’03 and I decided to return to our abandoned insane asylum roots last weekend. Amid padded rooms, underground patient-transport tunnels and zealous security guards, how could we help but find adventure? For added punch, we included two institutes in our travel plans: the Pennhurst School and Hospital as well as the Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane, also known as Byberry.

In the late 19th century, social reformers believed in “moral treatment” for people with mental illnesses: If the insane were separated from society and housed in ornate buildings with views of natural greenery, they would eventually recover. When these methods failed, doctors turned to more brutal methods: shock therapy, sterilization and lobotomy. Rather than treat illnesses, mental hospitals served to confine patients and prevent them from contaminating the gene pool. Overcrowding resulted in further cruelty. By the 1960s, mental health care had degenerated from placing patients in idyllic atmospheres to locking them in cages and poking them with cattle prods. Public outrage brought about new reforms. With the advent of improved medicines, asylums across the country were vacated and left to the elements.

Pennhurst follows this basic model. Founded in 1913 to treat “epileptic, idiotic, imbecile and feeble-minded persons,” the hospital eventually became a grotesque menagerie of abuse. Today, an Internet search for “Pennhurst” results in a list of lawsuits filed against the institution for patient mistreatment. Pennhurst closed in the 1980s, and carousing youths like Erik and myself have trespassed on its grounds ever since.

We arrived under cover of darkness and crept along an overgrown path to the complex. Brick structures lined a courtyard full of brambles. All buildings were dark — aside from one, from whence lights glowed. Who could be inside? Security guards? Practitioners of the dark arts? Not caring to interrupt either group, Erik and I avoided the well-lit edifice.

We entered a building labeled “CNEN” to look for the hospital morgue. Paintings of cars and cartoon characters peeled from the walls, and gun magazines were strewn all over the floor. We found a padded chair with a restraining strap, a smashed TV and the ruins of a barbershop, but nothing truly shocking. For that, we ventured down to the underground tunnels.

Erik led the way with our flashlight-truncheon. Distinctive bits of graffiti served as markers as we made our way through the winding passageways. After turning several dark corners, I gasped to see one room illuminated by a functioning light bulb. We tiptoed our way into it, only to find a rotund and unidentifiable piece of furniture. Scattered in the room behind it were typewriters, word processors and notebooks full of receipts. Evidently, we had reached the accounting office.

Only the sound of glass underfoot broke the silence as we tramped deeper into the corridor maze. Pentagram graffiti increased in frequency; surely we would find the morgue before long! We turned the corner at the end of one hallway to face a giant spray-painted “666.” A door with massive hinges and a chain stood ajar. Erik and I glanced at each other — a sinister door to mark a sinister room? Suddenly, a series of electronic beeping sounds disturbed the quiet.

An alarm!

Erik dashed away with the flashlight, leaving me stumbling in the dark. I cried out, he paused, and we ran together, splashing through puddles as our breathing echoed down every hall. At last we reached the stairs and stomped outside into the fresh air. We didn’t fully relax until we’d returned to the car and set sail for Byberry, in north Philadelphia.

Decades ago, Byberry housed thousands of patients in deplorable conditions. Often forced to go without clothing or food, inmates were routinely abused by the staff. Dozens committed suicide, and many others died at the hands of fellow patients. When the hospital finally closed in 1990, inmates who had never lived anywhere else broke back in and lived off small animals. Visitors to the 23-building complex often found carcasses in the hallways, and rumors of cult activity abounded. Police began strict patrols of the institution to ward off thrill-seekers and Satanists alike.

Unfortunately, Byberry’s urban environment has taken its toll on the ward buildings. Looters had stolen or destroyed most of the grisly furnishings by the time we arrived. Instead of brains in jars and shock therapy chairs, we found a row of N’SYNC dolls still in their boxes, a magazine collage of 1980s sports stars, as well as a heap of burned mattresses and some Kangaroo Jack graffiti. One intruder (a former patient?) had lived in a hole in the wall after climbing in through a grate and bashing out some plaster. Only his pillow, greasy shirt, comb and shoes remained.

Erik and I stamped through briars around the mortician’s building. In the moonlight, we spotted an open door, but just before we stepped inside, a flashlight beam flickered past the entrance. We froze and waited for the light to pass. Throughout the night, Erik and I heard footsteps and screams, though we never actually saw other people. At one point we found a lighted candle where we’d noticed none before. Frightful!

Word has it police monitor the hospital in white buggies, nabbing every trespasser they find. We didn’t spot a single go-cart, though we did accidentally verge upon a security van parked along the perimeter. When the officer inside switched on his searchlight, we waited for him to bumble out and harangue us. However, he failed to exit the vehicle, and we continued breaking into various buildings.

At around three in the morning, we decided to quit the dank structures in favor of Swarthmore. One night is simply not enough time for two asylums. Someday we’ll return to Pennhurst and Byberry for another weekend of morgue-hunting drollery.

E--mail Kate Duffy at kduffy1@swarthmore.edu.

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