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A Call for Preservation at Pennhurst: Honoring a Forgotten Past, Investing in a Better Future  

Reared against a cloud-studded sky high above a graceful curve in the Schuylkill River, a mysterious, hauntingly beautiful, seemingly forgotten place casts its shadow into the valley below. It is the fabled Pennhurst State School and Hospital. Its venerable administration building, the formidable red brick Jacobean Revival monument pictured here, has presided over the sprawling campus for over a century. At its height, Pennhurst was a self-sustaining community, with its own farms, power plant, and fire company, and though a major local employer, its population dwarfed that of surrounding towns. The administration building has come to symbolize Pennhurst-not just as a public institution, but as the setting of countless private and deeply personal stories that tell the tale of how we as a people have treated those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In the process of collecting stories about life and work at Pennhurst, nearly everyone offers the same refrain: a memorial, both to the suffering and the kindness played out at Pennhurst, ought to permanently remain on the site and in the landscape of our cultural memory. The preservation of the administration building -- Pennhurst's iconic structure -- is a fitting tribute.

But while we seek to honor our past by preserving this one building, we seek to invest in a better future by preserving much more of that once beautiful and therapeutic campus. There are very real and significant environmental and economic benefits that come with preservation. Those benefits—and the options for adaptive reuse—increase exponentially the more we preserve.

Though the entire Pennhurst campus, built predominantly in 1903-1906, was deemed eligible for the National Historic Register, time, vandals, and vagrants have taken their toll. Recently, the property was sold and there are fears that what remains of the Pennhurst property will be sacrificed to the onslaught of suburban sprawl. The long endured policy of forgetting about Pennhurst-its residents, its story, cannot persist.

Join us in overcoming complacency and putting aside notions that preservation here is impossible. A long list of other success stories with buildings in much worse shape than the administration building shows preservation is possible and we can do it if our efforts are concerted. We are presented with variety of options for preservation of the campus. While there has been significant deterioration, the building is structurally sound. A program of adaptive reuse could offer profitable new life as well as provide a lasting, living memorial.

How can you help?

Dear Friends,
Please join our effort to preserve an important piece of American history-The Pennhurst State School and Hospital-as a memorial to the suffering and kindness played out there over the institution's one hundred years. Please visit www.preservepennhurst.com and sign the electronic petition. Also, feel free to share your own Pennhurst story.
Sincerely,
Your Name.


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