Norristown Farm Park Moods

As many of you already know, not far from my house is the Norristown Farm Park.

The Norristown Farm Park was once part of the Norristown State Hospital, originally known as the State Lunatic Hospital at Norristown, was and is a psychiatric hospital.

Opened in July 12, 1880 - Dr. Alice Bennett, a graduate of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first woman in the nation to direct a mental institution, admitted the first patient.


With the grey overcast skies threatening rain, I decide to walk through the Farm Park and into the State Mental Hospital. I also decided to play with my camera's panoramic shot feature. I didn't quite "do it right" but the picture shows the view from the upper farm park looking northeast toward the Germantown Pike. Philadelphia is about 18 miles to the far right. The Stony Creek runs unseen in the valley below the road bridge seen in the middle of the picture.


The Stony Creek reflects the green splendor of a tree with fresh, spring leaves. I leave the Farm Park at this juncture and head into the hospital grounds.


I walk slowly past the front of The Administration Building as the sky grows gloomier and gloomier. Unbidden, the tune of the Addams Family enters my head...

They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're all together ooky,
The Addams Family.

Their house is a museum
Where people come to see 'em
They really are a scream
The Addams Family.

Or perhaps it is the home of Mr. and Mrs Herman Munster on 1313 Mockingbird Lane never before seen in color?


This building is located near the Administration Building. I looked for some sort of unifying architectural theme ... and decided perhaps one of the patients had a hand in designing it.

Only later I learned that a prominent Victorian-era architecture and engineering firm, Wilson Brothers & Company designed and built the original hospital buildings.

The Wilson Brothers designed or contributed engineering work to hundreds of bridges, railroad stations and industrial buildings. Among their surviving major works are the Pennsylvania Railroad Connecting Bridge over the Schuylkill River (1866-67), the main building of Drexel University (1888-91), and the train shed of Reading Terminal (1891-93), all in Philadelphia. So I should show some respect but jeepers, these old buildings gives me the willies.


The building that houses the one hundred and thirty-six patient forensic unit for criminally committed patients is often near capacity. My mind gathers in the bent barb-wired fence, the bus stop, and the speed bump and spins out as if it had hit an oil slick.

I think to myself, "I hope my life never encounters a speed bump where I find myself getting off a bus at a locked-down mental hospital..."


I resolutely decide to avoid ever taking SEPTA's bus route 90 which starts its voyage at the Plymouth Meeting Mall, near the now abandoned IKEA store.

That decided and mentally filed away for future reference, I start my walk back to my car and as I do, my scalp crawls and my arms get goosebumps. I hear in my head the voice of the evil Dr. Drakken from Kim Possible, laughing manically over and over again.

I shake my head and the voice changes to Rico in the Penguins of Madagascar but it is the same voice? Upset and alarmed, I look around to see what is causing my distress and see ... nothing ... unusual... when the voice returns... Duck Dodgers? What could be happening? A cold sweat pours from my forehead and I panic and start to run.

Suddenly, it dawns on me. That voice! It belongs to John DiMaggio, who is the cartoon voice of all those I was hearing in my head and one other...


Bender Bending Rodríguez of Futurama! I didn't know he had a couple of identical brothers, but being a mass produced robot, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me...even if seeing him and his brother's half buried standing up in the lawn of the mental hospital both surprised and scared the heck out of me.

Hmmm... Maybe I do need to take that bus ride.