Stop the madness
Ever since the grand old lady of Roosevelt Boulevard, the Sears Tower near Adams Avenue, was imploded in October 1994 to make way for a shopping center, the many majestic buildings on the grounds of the Philadelphia State Hospital a couple of miles north at Southampton Road assumed a whole new level of respect.
Byberry, as the hospital has always been known, shut down a dozen years ago but trespassing has been a chronic problem. The abandoned buildings, the mystique of a defunct psychiatric institution, the massive campus, the underground tunnels . . . they’ve been too difficult to resist.
Police must practice a zero-tolerance policy on trespassing at Byberry. Police Commissioner Johnson, please be proactive, not reactive, and marshal your forces. If saturating the Byberry site with your men and women in blue is what it takes to keep innocent people — ignorant as they may be — out of harm’s way, then so be it. Keeping the public off the property should be kept out of the hands of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the Byberry brouhaha, this is a good time to renew our suggestion to the powers-that-be in all levels of government: After the redevelopment dust settles, there will be space left for construction of a psychiatric institution, just like in the good old days.
With all due diligence, government should team up with mental-health experts to once again use a portion of the Byberry campus to treat mental illness. We all know the need is there, don’t we?
There are 153 vacant acres of public property at Byberry. We the people are worthy of a slice of that.
If you agree that the Keystone State should get back into the psychiatric business at Byberry, call state Rep. George Kenney (215-934-5144) or state Sen. Michael Stack (215-281-2539). ••