The attraction at the former Pennhurst Center has opened to the delight of haunted-house fans and to the chagrin of many others.
On Friday a Chester County judge denied the request for a preliminary injunction to halt the opening. The injunction was sought by neighbors of the East Vincent business who argued developers Richard Chakejian and Randy Bates failed to follow proper zoning procedures.
In denying the injunction request, Judge Robert Shenkin said he was not ruling on the merits of the lawsuit filed by Saul Rivkin and his wife Linda Fulton-Rivkin, but on the criteria of "irreparable harm" that would demand stopping the attraction from opening as planned.
The Rivkins' claim that the noise and the traffic might disrupt their rural neighborhood is certainly legitimate, but the judge was correct that it did not rise to the level of an emergency.
The suit, however, makes valid points about the cracks in township approval that preceded the attraction's opening.
And, the fact that the Pennhurst Asylum is now up and running does not make it less troublesome in the overarching battle for the rights of mentally challenged individuals and their families.
Chakejian and Bates and their attorney Ryan Costello, who is the former chairman of East Vincent Board of Supervisors and is the elected recorder of deeds for Chester County, insist the project had all the necessary approvals.
But, the property development did not go through a township zoning hearing process, which it seems should have occurred for a public attraction in an area zoned residential. The failure of township officials to enforce that hearing process denied residents the right to question the potential for noise, traffic and late-night activity.
Bates has estimated the Pennhurst Asylum will bring hundreds of people -- paying $25 a piece -- to this quiet corner at the edge of Spring City every weekend night from now until early November. This is a business that depends on crowds night after night -- don't compare it to a church dinner.
There is an upside to the crowds expected -- area businesses, particularly restaurants and hotels may benefit from the influx of people. But, a thorough vetting of the project in the zoning process could have allowed the crowds to come without leaving residents leery about what's to be expected in their neighborhoods after dark.
And, despite the insistence of the attraction's supporters to the contrary, the Pennhurst Asylum is offensive. Brochures promoting the attraction describe it as a "once notorious mental institution" ... "a world class haunted attraction guaranteed to drive you crazy" where "the fear is real."
The theme of fear in the attraction's promotions reverses the victories of all those who fought to prove that the mentally challenged are not to be pushed aside as repulsive or frightening.
This attraction has brought to the fore all the old debate about whether Pennhurst was a place of abuse or shelter, whether mentally challenged people should live independently or with supervision. Those debates will continue.
But, what happened or didn't at Pennhurst is not the issue here. The issue with Pennhurst Asylum is that it capitalizes on the sadness of institutionalizing mentally challenged people for a Halloween attraction. It takes a failure of society and celebrates it as fun.
This attraction could have been developed with the focus on old buildings and tunnels without the emphasis on what the buildings once housed. It could have been a well-planned attraction that benefited businesses without leaving neighbors in doubt as to crowd control and traffic.
But, that isn't what occurred. What is truly frightening is that more people appear to be interested in a good time than in following zoning laws and honoring a legacy of human rights.
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EAST VINCENT — The creators of Pennhurst Asylum insist the Halloween attraction, set to open on the grounds of the former state school and hospital Sept. 24, is not based on facts or aimed at insulting anyone.
"It's simply 'have fun at a fall event,' that was all it was meant to be," said landowner Richard Chakejian.
"By no means is the Halloween event meant ... to aggravate," said Chakejian. He said he and Randy Bates, owner of the Bates Motel and Haunted Hayride, in Glen Mills, created Pennhurst Asylum to be a scary Halloween entertainment activity.
But many people associated with the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital, which operated for more than eight decades as a home for more than 10,000 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, are opposed, some vehemently, to the Halloween attraction. Many of those people say using the property and land for a Halloween attraction is a mockery of the people who lived at Pennhurst, and their memory.
Among those people, and someone with first-hand knowledge of Pennhurst, is J. Gregory Pirmann, a former employee of Pennhurst and the senior vice president of the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance.
Pirmann acknowledged that the PMPA has issued a statement on behalf of the entire board (viewable at www.preservepennhurst.org,) and chose to speak about the Pennhurst Asylum attraction from his perspective as a former employee of Pennhurst for 17 years, beginning in 1969.
Pirmann said the original plans for the attraction, as he knew them, included actors portraying people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The idea that the actors would portray real people to create a sense of fear for entertainment was "just offensive beyond belief."
Chakejian and Bates said the decision to have actors portray people who once lived at Pennhurst has been changed, and now the storyline is "completely fictitious."
Nonetheless, Pirmann said mixing "fact and fiction," which both Chakejian and Bates acknowledged was what they planned to do at Pennhurst Asylum through the use of a factual mini museum followed by a fiction-based haunted attraction, will be problematic.
Chakejian explained he had reached out to many people vested in Pennhurst's preservation and asked them to contribute items, including photographs, to a mini museum he hoped to put in a few rooms that paying customers would enter before the fiction-based attraction; however, he got little or no response from those he reached out to.
Pirmann said he does not want to perpetuate what he believes will be a blending of fact and fiction at the attraction.
"Pennhurst history, people who go there are not going to make a distinction" between what's fact and fiction, Pirmann said. "A 17-year-old who spends his $25 there is not going to leave with this very refined belief... They're going to leave thinking that's what Pennhurst was about."
Pirmann said he is aware that attempts have been made to contact him with regard to obtaining factual information about Pennhurst to include in the museum portion of the attraction, but he has no interest in contributing anything.
"My cooperation with them would be disrespectful to the people who I knew at Pennhurst," Pirmann said. "I have boxes of stuff here" that could be used in an historically accurate exhibition. But "I will not cooperate with him (Chakejian). From the very early onset, we (at the PMPA) believed you could make much more money ... by offering tours that would tell the real story.
"It's the people I care about. The 10,000 people who lived at Pennhurst don't need their history paraded for entertainment," Pirmann said. "The people who lived at Pennurst, and the people who worked at Pennhurst, but more importantly the people who lived there, they don't need their history paraded on so someone can make some bucks."
Pirmann pointed to the "Legend" of Pennhurst Asylum on the attraction's website, which Chakejian and Bates said is fictitious and helps delineate from the factual history of the site.
"The biggest problem is the fact that they're parading on the sorry history to bring people to the place and make money off of it, and this 'legend' ... is not going to offset that," Pirmann said.
Pirmann, among others, pointed out that some of the "History" presented as fact on the attraction's website is incorrect.
"All these things they claimed to have found" at Pennhurst ... "there was no electroshock treatment. There were no autopsies performed there," Pirmann said, referencing the history of Pennhurst as listed on the website. "Pennhurst was not a mental health facility; there was no electroshock facility."
"This (attraction) is going to further the notion that Pennhurst is a horrible place staffed by horrible people," Pirmann said. "That's the real horror of Pennhurst, not that some people were abused ... but that society said all of these people are dangerous, all of these people are worthless, and all of these people should be locked away.
"It's just an abomination what they're doing," Pirmann said.
"More than 100 years ago" in line with the beliefs of Social Darwinism, the belief was held that you could "isolate them (the people with disabilities) until they basically withered away. That's a much more important story ... but that's not what they're interested in."
Jennifer R. Clark, the executive director of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia which brought the lawsuit that led to the closing of Pennhurst, said her organization is "totally opposed to the way in which people with disabilities are being portrayed" by "Pennhurst Asylum."
"My objection is that beginning in the early 1900s, there has been this cloud of misunderstanding and fear over people with disabilities, and that leads to the kinds of abuses we saw throughout the 19th Century, that lead to people being abused and segregated.
"Lawyers have spent decades to get rid of that cloud of fear," Clark said. "What we have spent decades fighting, this (Halloween attraction) brings back that fear.
"What I object to is linking fear ... with the people who lived there," Clark clarified.
Clark said among the most objectionable things about Pennhurst Asylum is that it is being created at a place "where people, who are still living, lived."
"It's disrespectful for the people who died, and for people who fought to get out of there and are still living in the community. To use this place as a place of entertainment, even if you completely change the story" is wrong, Clark said. "No matter what they say, they are making the people who lived there a scary thing."
"The fundamental point is that this is a place with history that needs to be treated with deep respect, sadness and understanding," Clark said. "Anything that's going to be treated as a haunted place, an asylum ... you can think of a lot of places you would not do that with. You wouldn't do that with a death camp, a Nazi death camp. You would't do that because it's too serious."
Clark also expressed concern with the attraction's claim on its website of "mixing fact with fiction."
"The reason this is scary is because they are playing on the fear that people have of people with disabilities," Clark said. "I think a very respectful historically accurate, non-fear mongering opportunity to visit would be appropriate" at Pennhurst. But "They are capitalizing on the fear and the horror of people, it's the taking that horror and turning it into something entertaining that is offensive."
Refuting the claims of Chakejian and Bates that Pennhurst Asylum is "has nothing to do with the people who lived" at Pennhurst, Clark said the language used on the attraction's website gives another impression.
Phrases on the website like "It's so scary it will drive you crazy," is some of the language that "tells you that what they're capitalizing on is the fear and misunderstanding" of people with mental disabilities or mental illness, Clark said. "They are trying to capitalize on all our prejudices. They can say they're not, but just by the words they use" they are.
Chakejian said he disagrees that all people who take an advocacy stance are against Pennhurst Asylum.
"As far as the former patients and residents, I've interviewed personally a few patients, (and asked) if using one of our buildings as a Halloween event would be offense and the answers are no," Chakejian said.
"Everybody has an opinion and everybody is entitled to an opinion. What I can tell you is that we've gone out of our way to proactively ask Dr. Conroy on his suggestions on how to approach it and we've instituted his suggestions."
Betty Cauler, who is making a documentary about Pennhurst and through that process realized she has an ancestor who was at Pennhurst, agreed with both Pirmann and Clark in that no matter how much factual information is provided about the history of Pennhurst, when that information is paired with a haunted attraction that skews what happened at Pennhurst, the impression paying customers leave with will also be skewed.
"Even though they say they're going to put a museum in, like the first rooms you go into are supposedly going to be a museum, and then you go through the attraction, what are you going to think? This is what Pennhurst was like, full of these monsters and creepy people? It's like it's making fun of handicapped people."
Moreover, Cauler looked at what she believed was the most obvious indicator that people coming to the attraction won't separate Pennhurst the state school and hospital from Pennhurst Asylum the Halloween attraction.
"How do you separate this (attraction) from Pennhurst when it's being called the Pennhurst Asylum?" She said.
Cauler said Pennhurst is not a "creepy, haunted place," rather "it's a place that has a very tragic history, but ... it was home for a lot of people.
"To exploit that it's, pardon the expression, it's crazy," Cauler said. She expressed that having a haunted attraction at Pennhurst makes this real place "into a carnival sideshow."
"No matter how you try to sugarcoat it ... the people (who buy a ticket for the attraction) are still going to come out of this thinking this is what it was like," Cauler said.
Dr. James Conroy, the co-president of the PMPA, who has degrees in physiological psychology, sociology and a Ph.D. in medical sociology, confirmed he offered to work with Chakejian and Bates to improve the Pennhurst Asylum attraction so it was less offensive.
Although he declined to offer his own opinion on the attraction, Conroy did acknowledge that by working with Chakejian and Bates he found "progress" in the script of the attraction.
"I made suggestions, and it appears that they have been adopted," Conroy said. "I informed (Chakejian) that this won't satisfy everyone, but it's certainly an improvement. My organization is devoted to a dignified memory of the people who spent their lives at Pennhurst. No matter what we do, some people will never think this is a dignified way to treat their memory. It will never be enough for some people."
Conroy said before the changes he suggested were made, "the scripts had the people who used to live there (at Pennhurst) ... as the scary creatures," Conroy said. "That was horrible."
However, "working together, we changed the script to avoid that completely, so that now people who lived with disabilities and lived in agony there are not being demonized, and that's progress."
Additionally, Conroy said, the actors being hired to work in the attraction are and will be instructed to never pretend they are guards or residents of Pennhurst, "but rather, ghosts and goblins."
"The actors will not pretend to portray people with disabilities as evil, scary or monstrous," Conroy said.
Conroy confirmed that despite progress with Chakejian and Bates making some concessions which he suggested, "there will never be enough progress for everyone" to be satisfied with the haunted attraction.
Among those apparently not satisfied with the changes Chakejian and Bates made to the attraction, was Easter Seals.
Chakejian told The Mercury that he wanted to give a portion of the proceeds from Pennhurst Asylum, likely be in the area of "low five to six figures," to a charity. The charity initially chosen was Easter Seals.
However, Conroy confirmed that the Easter Seals "didn't want to be affiliated" with Pennhurst Asylum after learning what it was and having their logo put on the website as one of the charities that would benefit from some of the profits.
"I was asked by the ARC of Philadelphia to ask this question (of Easter Seals): 'Do you know what this (attraction) is,'" Conroy said. "And they responded, and I quote 'We were told it's just a Halloween hayride.' So I sent the website and explained that it's probably the most famous institution for people with intellectual disabilities."
Conroy said after Easter Seals learned more about the haunted attraction, its representatives asked to have their logo removed from the Pennhurst Asylum website and to not be affiliated in any way with the attraction, including receiving proceeds from it.
Conroy acknowledged that among the priorities he sees with regard to Pennhurst is one of preservation. "This is the place where it all began, the right to education began right there," Conroy said. "That right was born right here in Pennsylvania in 1972. This is probably the last really valuable civil rights property in America."
Nathaniel Guest, who is on the board of the PMPA and identified himself as a preservationist, said his goal has been to keep an open dialogue with the owner of Pennhurst, including dialogue about land uses for the property that will facilitate preservation.
One way to explore the possibilities of how to preserve the property and the historical integrity of Pennhurst is through a recent study.
Guest said it's important for preservationists to come to an agreement with property owners before they make a concerted effort to throw money at a project.
"It doesn't make any sense to raise $12 million and hand over the check and say 'Fix up these buildings,'" without knowing what the money will be used for and having a written agreement detailing what the money will be used for, Guest said. He expressed that the recent study has done just that with Pennhurst.
"It isn't a question so much has how much (money needs to be raised), but what for," Guest said. An agreement based on research and studies on the possible uses for the land is essential. "I think having that knowledge is just as important as writing a check."
Guest said he's not sure that a haunted attraction is the only way to raise money for preservation at Pennhurst, although he conceded that similar ventures have worked to fund preservation at other sites.
"But," Guest noted, "this site is loaded with such, in the end what is ultimately a very positive history, but leading up to that it was very checkered."
Chakejian acknowledged he would like to preserve Pennhurst saying "I would like for the buildings to be in pristine condition and I would like it to just happen. However, you don't always just get your wish list."
Chakejian expressed that returning the buildings to their former state, and preserving the property is going to take funding. He and Bates believe money raised by the haunted attraction can be put back into Pennhurst.
Bates said no other means to raise money will "be able to raise the capital that a haunted attraction would raise."
And despite the ties Pirmann, Clark, Cauler, or anyone else make between Pennhurst as it was historically and Pennhurst Asylum, the Halloween attraction, Chakejian said they are two very different things.
"The event is a satire," Chakejian said. "Period; end of story."
