| News A bill sponsored by Senator Richard J. Codey which would establish a task force to develop a preservation plan for the main building at the original Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey was unanimously approved by the Senate State Government Committee The Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia has listed Pennhurst among its Most Endangered Properties for 2009. See http://www.preservationalliance.com/advocacy/supportingdocs/EndangeredNewsWin10.pdf. The Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia has partnered with the PM&PA in obtaining a grant through the Community Design Collaborative to study re-use of the Pennhurst campus. A fresh new year brings a brand new set of challenges. But let's not forget the accomplishments that the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance achieved in 2009. Thanks to everybody who have helped and supported us in the past year! Board of Directors established, including key national policy makers, disability advocates, self advocates, and political representatives. Advisory Board established, consisting of prominent national leaders in from all areas in the Unites States in the field of disabilities including Bill Baldini, the TV10 news reporter who broke the story on the horrific conditions at Pennhurst in 1968. Established National Register of Historic Places Eligibility. Designated as member of International Sites of Conscience. Incorporate as a not-for-profit in PA:Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance. Obtained 501(c)3 tax exempt status. Developed a primary and impressive resource website at www.PreservePennhurst.org which pulls in national interest including two TV shows aired on A&E and Travel Networks. Engaged in positive planning discussions with the current owner, after many months of extraordinary suspicion on both ends. Attended all township meetings, met with head of Board of Supervisors, developing a positive relationship. Approved for Historical Marker on highway outside Pennhurst; dedication will be in partnership with PILCOP on April 10, 2010, with a major celebration and ceremony. Allied with Local, State, and National Preservationists in developing possible plans. Obtained $ 20,000 grant for master site planning (the eminent group Community Design Collaborative.) The Design Plan calls for a Task Force with local leaders; see website list of prominent community service leaders, national and state political figures, and disabilitiy activists. Scheduled to begin in early 2010.
We are pleased to announce that, in partnership with the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadephia, the PM&PA has been awarded a design services grant through the American Institute of Architect's Community Design Collaborative (see http://cdesignc.org/). Thanks to the kind cooperation of property owner Richard Chakejian, the grant will be used to design a specific vision of the best way to create a mixed use, new urbanist high-tech/green community of conscience centered around a national memorial, museum, research center, and conference facility – all concerned with disability history. Your input is very welcome at this stage in the process, and you are encouraged to contribute your thoughts here.
Jean Searle, James Conroy and J. Gregory Pirmann of The Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance are interviewed by Dr. Nathaniel Williams for his Navigating Your Life podcast at WebTalkRadio.com. Discussion covers Pennhurst history, it's legacy, the future of the property and goals of the Preservation Alliance. Listen to the podcast.
Janet Albert-Herman's excellent editorial encouraging support for the preservation effort.
PreservePennhurst.com has been accepted into the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is a worldwide network of “Sites of Conscience” – historic sites specifically dedicated to remembering past struggles for justice and addressing their contemporary legacies.
Pennhurst celebrates it's 100th year anniversary! Pottstown Mercury article here
Pennhurst was listed as one of the most at risk properties in Pennsylvania by Preservation Pennsylvania. Newsletter in .PDF format
The Phoenix announcement regarding the Open House featuring the Pennhurst Preservation Project at the Ridge Fire Company in Spring City on Friday, Sept 12th.
Philadelphia Inquirer about the Preservation Project.
(.JPG version page 1 & page 2)
Below is the rebuttal posted by Nathaniel Guest in the Daily Local News to the editorial posted on July 9th regarding facts and sources related to the Preservation project:
The Pennhurst preservation facts
Your editorial of July 9 implies that the growing movement to preserve Pennhurst is based on whimsy, not well-reasoned need. Preservation, however, is a process of making informed decisions about how to shape our future. I encourage everyone to attend our Sept. 12 meeting at Ridge Fire Company at 7 p.m. as part of their process of being informed. Informed decisions require facts. Let's start with yours.
You say that "some" of the buildings "may" be historic and should be reviewed for historical merit. That has been done, and East Vincent's regulations define them as such.
You imply an inference to Pennhurst being a "death camp." We have deliberately asserted that part of its importance lies in its much more nuanced story. Very bad things happened there, and no one who has checked his facts would suggest otherwise. But something powerfully positive happened there, too. Pennhurst was the place where we as Pennsylvanians — as Americans — awakened to the problems in how we treated those we saw as "others." Greg Pirmann, former special assistant to the superintendent at Pennhurst, spoke to this point at our presentation. I defy anyone to learn the full Pennhurst story and then tell anyone who lived through it that their legacies are too hopeless to rescue.
Moreover, your distasteful "pet rescue" analogy misses the boat, assuming the very conclusion it wishes to propound. We are asking for a preservation process that takes into account all costs -- including the costs of not preserving. One way to ensure, though, that the facts and costs won't be properly analyzed is to rely on the statements made by a developer seeking to serve his own short-term interests. The developer's evasiveness about his plans is not accidental, and while it is true that issues of public safety or cost can frustrate preservation, developers have circumvented preservation laws by merely doing nothing — allowing deterioration to create a safety hazard or to render a building "too far gone."
East Vincent's preservation ordinances allow the board of supervisors to mandate that developers take steps to stabilize historic resources, both to eliminate public safety hazards and to reduce the cost of their future preservation. Developers are on notice of these preservation laws, and we make no apologies for demanding their enforcement. Ultimately, the best way to decide what is realistic is to commission an independent review by an expert in the preservation field — looks can be deceiving with structures as well-built as Pennhurst's.
You ask for facts supporting preservation. I cited a great number of facts and figures in my recent speech, and I brought along such research for review. For those not present, I suggest looking at the "Economics of Historic Preservation" by Donovan D. Rypkema, which details the benefits of preservation by keeping investment dollars local and stabilizing property values during economic downturn. The Sierra Club maintains a series of fact sheets detailing the effects of insensitive development on local business, traffic congestion, infrastructure (and, consequently, everyone's taxes). See http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/reports.
The fact an acre an hour is lost to sprawl is widely accepted and readily found even online. See, e.g., http://www.saveourlandsaveourtowns.org/ ... g303.html; see also the National Science Foundation Award-winning study, "An Acre An Hour: Documenting the Effects of Urban Sprawl on a Model Watershed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" (available at http://www.sciencestorm.com/award/0001884.html.
On its Web site, Preservation North Carolina has reported on the triple hit destruction of historic structures makes on the environment by 1) wasting the embodied energy in the existing structures; 2) requiring significant energy to demolish and 3) overburdening our landfills. These concerns are exacerbated when dealing with structures as substantially built as those at Pennhurst.
Finally, the National Park Service reviews the generous tax advantages the state and the federal government afford to developers who agree to forgo a get-rich-quick philosophy and agree to preserve our heritage at http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/index.htm.
(Nathaniel Guest is a resident of Pottstown.)
The following is an anti-preservation editorial posted in the Daily Local News. Rebuttal can be found above: Pennhurst preservation advocates must provide data to support claims Nathaniel Guest, the face behind the growing grassroots movement Preserve Pennhurst, spoke about his group's goals at a Spring-Ford Rotary Club luncheon in Montgomery County last week.
Guest was there to speak to his group's notion that the local economy and the environment could benefit from preserving a portion of the former Pennhurst site.
And while we agree that each structure deemed to be historic should be evaluated on its own merits, we find a lot of questions in some of his claims.
To begin with, there are some buildings that are old and while they may have some history behind them, there may not be a reasonable way to preserve them. There may be safety issues, health issues or just plain unreasonable financial issues.
It's like going to the animal shelter and wanting to take home every puppy and kitten you find there. It just can't happen and we all need to be realistic.
With Pennhurst, however, there are other factors at work as well. Some would like to preserve some of the buildings to remind us of the "horrors" that occurred at the facility. While there's no doubt some mistakes were made in the operations of Pennhurst, it wasn't a death camp. So there's no need to keep a building intact as some sort of memorial.
A private company purchased 111 acres of the Pennhurst property in February. Although no development plans have been forwarded to the township, some say businessman Richard Chakejian is considering tearing down all abandoned buildings at Pennhurst.
It wasn't made clear by Guest's speech what Chakejian's motives are. We'll have to wait and see what those plans are before we evaluate them.
We also wonder where Guest comes up with the statistic that every hour, one acre of land is developed and lost to sprawl in the greater Philadelphia region.
He also said that 70 percent of restoration costs at Pennhurst would go toward labor.
"While we buy materials from afar - the HVAC system might be from Ohio or Japan and the lumber from Oregon or Canada - we buy the services of the plumber, electrician and carpenter from down the street," Guest said.
Money for most materials leaves town, "but the plumber gets a haircut on the way home, buys groceries and joins the YMCA - recirculating that paycheck within the community," Guest said.
Jobs created for such projects tend to pay well, and investment in local restoration tends to stabilize local economies during slow times and encourage outside investment, Guest said.
Where does this information come from?
We're sure Guest has the best of intentions. But when evaluating such a large project as the reuse of the Pennhurst site, we'd like to stick to facts. If he has the data to back up his claims, we'd like to hear it.
This site is too important to let be decided on emotion.
Said Guest, "The places we preserve nurture the human spirit and provide inspiration and stability amid change. And it is true, preservation provides on the most fundamental level a stabilizing and inspiring influence in a world in flux," Guest said.
Those are beautiful words. We're just not quite sure what they're supposed to mean.
Pottstown Mercury article about the Preservation presentation to the Rotary Club. (.PDF version here) or (.JPG version page 1 & page 2) Pennhurst entered into "This Place Matters" on the National Trust for Historic Preservation website. Pottstown Mercury article about future plans of Pennhurst. (.PDF version here) or (.JPG version here) Letter to the township regarding preservation intentions. Letter mailed to 36 applicable parties on May 23, 2008
PDF format .pdf
Link to the May 26 article in the Pottstown Mercury about the Preservation Project. (PDF May 26 article). On May 23, a letter was mailed out to all interested parties (and will be posted on the PP website) reviewing East Vincent Township's preservation ordinances as they relate to Pennhurst.
In short, the ordinances state that Pennhurst can neither be allowed to deteriorate further or be demolished without obtaining a permit from the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors will deny or approve the permit based on the recommendation of the historical commission. Among the factors that the historic commission considers is the condition of the property, the cost to restore, and the importance of the property.
We must encourage the township to seek an independent appraisal of the building by a qualified preservation expert. VISIBLE, VOCAL SUPPORT as channelled through petition signatures goes a long way in underscoring the importance of the property.
We have been keeping the Mercury and the Inquirer appraised of our efforts and they welcome letters to the editor.
State Senator Dinniman has congratuated the effort so far and offered his support. US Congressman Gerlach has expressed an interest and we hope to speak with him next week.
We have sent another letter to the developer himself to encourage open dialogue.
We have had several very positive meetings with Township and County officials who are willing to listen to our cause and look forward to a continuing dialogue.
A YouTube video is in creating advertising the project which should be available within the week. We plan to have a public presentation about the project and Pennhurst, along with a gallery showing of photographs (such as those offered through the photo contest) in late summer/early fall. T-shirts and other items may be produced. Preserve Pennhurst notecards have already been produced and can be provided at cost to anyone who wants them.
More articles need to be written and other avenues of publicity devised and pursued. We would like PCTV, PBS, etc, to run a video we have featuring Pennhurst and include a trailer about the preservation project. Yard signs advertising the website are also a good idea.
Ideally, we need additional people willing and able to take on publicity duties great and small. The preservation project is taking off. Many people are asking how they can help. Here is what is needed: - Getting any and all newspapers/newsletters to print notices of our articles about the project that mention www.preservepennhurst.org and the petition. If you know of any organizations that would be supportive, please contact them. Here is a potential message you might use:
I am writing on behalf of an increasing number of concerned citizens committed to preserving of a portion of the Pennhurst State School and Hospital -- a place significant to the national history and the human identity. We seek to preserve Pennhurst's campus as a memorial to the thousands of residents who suffered there and the countless of caring workers who tried to care for them in the face of a broken system. Pennhurst is a place of national significance and local meaning. We believe honoring this part of our past--the people, places, the triumphs and tragedies--is an essential duty of a citizenry responsibly engaged in the crafting of its own future. Please visit www.preservepennhurst.org, sign the online petition, include this message in your newsletter/message boards, and forward to friends. - Create large signs advertising www.preservepennhurst.org and place them near the Pennhurst property (please remember - the campus is private property. DO NOT trespass on the grounds), on the roads leading to Pennhurst, or other prominent places (permission of landowners will be needed).
- Print out the single-page flyer and put in high traffic areas. Create a short video advertising the project and www.preservepennhurst.org for YouTube or public access TV.
- We are working on an official presentation about the project. We will make it available to you if you would like to present it to interested groups.
Any help you can provide would be much appreciated. We can work with you to provide history or other resources if you are interested in taking on a project.
Sincerely,
Nathaniel Guest |
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