Chapter Three: Subdivision and Re-Use, 1919 to 1959

1919 to 1923: Owen Copp and his Vision for a Modern Psychiatric Hospital in West Philadelphia and Beyond the City Limits137

In 1911 the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital appointed Owen Copp (1858-1933) Physician in Chief and Superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane.138 Dr. Copp was a native of New England, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1881 and from Harvard Medical School in 1884.  One year later, he became a physician in the State Hospital for the Insane at Taunton, Massachusetts.  In 1895 he was named the first Superintendent of the Massachusetts Hospital for Epileptics at Monson and in 1899 he was named Executive Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Insanity (known today as the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health).  In this last position, his achievements in improving the care of the mentally ill in Massachusetts brought him national attention.  The Pennsylvania Hospital appointment was one of his many rewards.  Another was his presidency, in 1921, of the American Psychiatric Association.  Owen Copp was one of the most distinguished hospital administrators of his generation.

Dr. Copp’s administration proved transformative for the Hospital for the Insane.139 He began as he had done in Massachusetts, by advocating higher standards in the care of the Department’s patients.  This led almost immediately to the establishment of a specialized nurses’ training school on the Department’s West Philadelphia campus.  In 1914 two training schools opened, one for women and one for men.   Jessie L. Brown was the first superintendent of women nurses; Leroy N. Craig was the first superintendent of male nurses.  Simultaneously he began to reduce the duration of patient treatment and the number of in-patients, deciding in many cases that the patient could do better in the familiar surroundings of family and community.  This new philosophy was expressed in part in January 1919, when, in response to changing public perceptions of the mentally ill, he prevailed upon the Board of Managers to change the name of the Department:140

Hospital Name Changed

Word "Insane" Dropped as Objectionable by Pennsylvania

The name of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, Forty-ninth and Market streets, has been changed to Pennsylvania Hospital Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases.  This was announced today in the annual report of the board of managers.  … 

Regarding the change of name, the report says:

"As time passed the term insane gradually lost its original content, signifying ill-health, and by constant usage in court proceedings and restraint of personal liberty became narrowed in scope to that degree of mental ill-health which exceeds the limit of self-control and self-care and involves a declaration of mental incompetence and legal restriction.

"The new meaning, being repugnant to patients and their friends, became a serious obstacle to early and adequate treatment in hospitals.  Moreover, the whole trend of progress in the management of mental patients has been away from the court and compulsive measures toward the voluntary relation."

By 1919 Dr. Copp was also looking to the future of the Department.  In September of that year the Board of Managers granted the Department control of the huge tract of suburban farm land the Hospital had purchased in the 1880s and 1890s.141 The Board adopted the following resolution:

Resolved, That all the Hospital property at Newtown Square shall become, March 1st 1920, a part of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases under the supervision of the Farm Committee and that the accounts shall show the expense and income of said property under three main heads:

1. Farm
2. Grounds
3. Patients

That the Farm Committee be authorized to continue planning the development of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases in accordance with the resolution creating the Committee on Hospital Development.

The Board’s intention, at least at this time, was that the Department would eventually move to Newtown Square.  Dr. Copp had another idea, as will be discussed below.

Perhaps most importantly, however, in October of 1919, Dr. Copp re-organized the Department, created an out-patient clinic, and placed Edward A. Strecker in charge.  Dr. Strecker (1886-1959) was to figure significantly in the future of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases.142 He had earned the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1907 from Philadelphia’s St. Joseph’s College and the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Jefferson Medical College in 1911.  He joined the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1913 and remained affiliated with the Hospital until his retirement forty years later.  In 1931 he became Professor of Psychiatry in and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.  He was a distinguished practitioner, scientist, and scholar and by 1940 he enjoyed a national reputation for leadership in the profession.  Drs. Copp and Strecker shared the modern view that the mentally ill should not be confined in an institution – no matter how well appointed – but should be treated in and benefit from their own families and communities.  Out-patient clinics were the proper direction in which to move the care and treatment of the mentally ill.  In the annual report of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases for 1921, Dr. Copp expressed these views as follows,143

Commitment to a mental hospital may be avoided.  Only 30 mental patients were committed during the year, while 59 remained at home under treatment and supervision of the clinic.

Patients reach such a clinic much earlier than a mental hospital.  Their condition is thus recognized and treated at an earlier stage which is more favorable to recovery or alleviation and sometimes prevents development of serious mental disorder.  Anxiety of the family is relieved either by successful treatment of the patient or advice as to the best provision for the future.

It is gratifying to note a growing interest in mental hygiene and community service to mental patients, which is manifest in the establishment of other clinics of this general character.

As mentioned above, one effect of this new philosophy was to reduce the number of resident patients in the Department and thereby, also, the Department’s income.  In the last three years of Dr. Chapin’s previous administration – 1908, 1909, and 1910 – the Department operated at near capacity, averaging 448 resident patients at the close of each year.  In the last three years of Dr. Copp’s administration – 1919, 1920, and 1921 – the Department averaged just 327 resident patients.  In order to balance the books, Dr. Copp laid off dozens of employees.  The number of resident staff decreased from 291 in 1910144 to 191 in 1920.145 The overall size of the West Philadelphia community, both resident patients and resident staff, dropped 28%, from 737 to 530 and would continue to decline in future years.  The Copp administration was a watershed in the history of the Pennsylvania Hospital.

By 1921, however, Dr. Copp wanted to do something more than serve as Physician-in-Chief and Administrator of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases.  He had a vision for the future of psychiatry and the treatment of mental illness and he hoped that Pennsylvania Hospital would provide him with the means to pursue that vision.  It did.  In December 1921, he resigned his position, effective 1 October 1922.146 He negotiated with a committee of the Board of Managers and in May 1922 the Board appointed him to the newly created post of "Consultant for the Future Development of the Pennsylvania Hospital."147 He wasted no time in bringing his plans before the Managers.  At the November 1922 meeting of the Board, he made the first of many reports which would follow over the remainder of the decade,148

Dr. Copp presented the needs of the Psychiatric Hospital in West Philadelphia and the development of Ashley [in Newtown Square] as follows:

That [the Farm Committee] be authorized by the Board to have made under direction of the Consultant for Future Development of the Hospital, by architects and engineers to be designated by the Managers from time to time as required, preliminary studies, and whenever necessary, definite specifications and working drawings for: –

First:    The development at the Department for Men in West Philadelphia, comprising work substantially as follows:

1. A psychiatric hospital having a capacity of 100 to 120 beds.
2. A suitable staff house – medical and administrative.
3. Renovation of the main [1859] building for a nurses’ home and other purposes.
4. Home for employees – men – women.
5. Heat, light and power plant, shops and garage.
6. Service building for supplies, refridgerating plant, kitchen, employees’ dining rooms, laundry, and similar purposes.

Second:  The development at Ashley [in Newtown Square],comprising work substantially as follows:

1. A complete hospital on the cottage plan for 200 to 300 mental patients of all classes and conditions.
2. Ground plan showing the definite size and location of buildings, their arrangement, inclusive of the necessary landscape studies and plans.

            That the Committee be authorized to employ as architect, for any or all of this work, Mr. Arthur H. Brockie, 254 South 15th Street, Philadelphia, with the understanding that the work may be stopped at any time;  …  [and] that a consulting architect may be appointed if the Managers should so determine at any time.  … 

The recommendations of the Farm Committee as contained in Dr. Copp’s report were duly approved.

This was the beginning of Dr. Copp’s efforts to persuade the Board of Managers to build in West Philadelphia a new psychiatric hospital devoted primarily to out-patient treatment.  He worked steadily, presenting his plans to the Board meeting after meeting, report after report.  In addition to his plans for new buildings and landscaping, he also proposed plans for fundraising.  His was a comprehensive approach to the challenge.

1923 to 1928:  The Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia Builds its Corporate Headquarters in West Philadelphia

First Dr. Copp persuaded the Board to sell the "vacant property" on the West Philadelphia campus.  The Board defined the "unused Hospital land" as all the property between 46th Street and the line of the future 48th Street, from Market Street on the south all the way north to Haverford Avenue, a total of approximately twenty-four acres.149 In July of 1923 he reported to the Board that a "For Sale" sign had been placed at the northwest corner of 46th and Market Streets and that the availability of the site had been publicized by the Philadelphia newspapers.150 He also reported that there was great interest in developing the site.  Eight months later, in February 1924, the Board authorized "the Development Committee for West Philadelphia" to negotiate with a potential buyer "the sale of the western half of the vacant property."151 In April, after two votes, accompanied by three abstentions, the Board approved the sale of approximately 12.5 acres to the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia.152

Provident Mutual was a major Philadelphia business firm.153 The company traced its origins to 1865, when a group of Philadelphia Quakers incorporated the Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia.  The company soon grew very profitable and hired the famous Philadelphia architect, Frank Furness, to design a corporate headquarters at 409 Chestnut Street, on a block known as "Bankers Row."  This new building was occupied in 1879.  Less than ten years later the company hired Furness again to design a ten-story, office-building addition directly on the corner of 4th and Chestnut Streets.  This second building was occupied in 1890.  These two structures were often counted among the leading architectural landmarks of the city (but both were demolished in the mid 20th century).

In the early 1920s, however, a change in Pennsylvania banking law brought about the separation of the insurance business from the banking company.154 The Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia was independently incorporated in December 1922.  Almost immediately the officers of Provident Mutual began thinking about a corporate headquarters.  Led by its President, Asa S. Wing, the company developed an innovative plan, which Wing articulated in May 1924, when the purchase was made from the Pennsylvania Hospital,155

Provident Buys Tract for New Office Plan

To Combine Recreation Place for Employees
With Proposed Headquarters

The real estate market is reflecting a new era in the business life of large institutions employing numbers of men and women workers.  For several years such institutions as banks, publishing houses and insurance companies, as well as industrial plants, have provided athletic fields and clubhouses outside the city for their employees.  But such suburban recreation centres cannot, because of their location, supply a ready opportunity for daily relaxation in the open, and the plan of building business plants just outside the business centre of the city has been hit upon.

Part of the site of "Kirkbride’s," at Forty-eighth and Market Streets, has been purchased by the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company.  The site bought includes 12 acres, and Asa S. Wing, president of the company, announced last week that the land was acquired with the idea of providing recreation grounds for the employees in connection with an office building.

In speaking of the purchase, which includes the lot lying east of Forty-eighth Street, 400 feet on Market Street, and running back 1,200 feet to Haverford Avenue, Mr. Wing said:

"We have considered the possibility of a lot of land somewhat removed from the business centre of the city, large enough to provide for an office building ample for many years, with room to enlarge the building indefinitely, and also to have land adjacent to our building available for outdoor recreation for our employees, including our agents."

It is not clear why the Provident Mutual chose to purchase only half the available land in 1924156 and waited another year to buy the other half,157 but that was the sequence of events.  In any case, the first step in Dr. Copp’s plan for the West Philadelphia campus was realized.158 Provident Mutual wasted no time in designing and constructing a new corporate headquarters, which was finished and occupied in April 1928,159

Provident Mutual Moves to 46th and Market Sts.

Insurance Company Uses Three Days to Shift to New Building

The Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company, 4th and Chestnut streets, is taking advantage of the three Easter holidays to move its office equipment and records into its new building, just completed on property purchased from the Pennsylvania Hospital, at 46th and Market streets.

The transfer started yesterday, at 4 p.m.  Monday morning the entire office force of the insurance department will start work in the new building.

Insurance Company Uses Three Days to Shift to New Building

The new edifice cost approximately $3,000,000 and work was started almost two years ago, on ground purchased at almost $31,000 an acre.  It was designed by Cram & Ferguson, of Boston, and built by the Turner Construction Company.  The main building is 340 feet long and 60 feet deep.  It is flanked by a power plant and a recreation building.

1928 to 1938:  The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital

Returning to 1923, Dr. Copp’s second West Philadelphia proposal to the Board of Managers was that it launch a major fundraising campaign to benefit the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases.  In December of that year the Board approved a $1 million appeal for the Department, "in addition to the proceeds of the sale of land, when sold, between Forty-sixth and Forty-eighth Streets."160 Dr. Copp and the Board of Managers also looked for income from that portion of the West Philadelphia property east of 46th Street and in July 1926, decided to lease space at the southeast corner of 46th Street and Haverford Avenue161 to what was then known as the Drexel Institute of Technology,162

Drexel Leases Ground

Institute to Have Athletic Field on Hospital Land

The Drexel Institute has leased for a five-year period a large portion of the grounds of the Pennsylvania Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases, for use as an athletic field.  A clubhouse will be erected in the section near 46th st. and Haverford av., and a quarter-mile track, base ball and foot ball fields will be laid out.  There will also be six tennis courts.

With more than $700,000 in hand from the two sales of land and additional income realized from the Drexel lease, the Board of Managers was now prepared to authorize construction of the first buildings in Dr. Copp’s plans.  It is instructive to note that his first priority was the construction of new service buildings at the 49th Street facility of the Department for Men.  These were necessary to clear the way for the proposed psychiatric hospital and rather than wait to do both the service buildings and the hospital in one project, Dr. Copp moved ahead promptly with the money available to him.  In August 1925, the Board authorized $758,000 in contracts for constructing "new East and West Service Buildings" in West Philadelphia.163 The new buildings were constructed on the southwest corner of 48th Street and Haverford Avenue.164

The very next month, September 1925, Dr. Copp returned to the Board with the request to begin the previously authorized public appeal and to raise the funds necessary to build the psychiatric hospital.165 The Board approved and appointed a "Committee on Campaign," chaired by Arthur V. Morton,166 President of the Board, and including, as a regular member, Dr. Copp.  The Committee’s work was slow, but a professional fundraising firm was hired to organize and manage the campaign and finally, in January 1927, the program was launched.  Gifts and pledges came in more slowly than hoped, but gradually they accumulated and in the summer of 1928 the Board of Managers gave Dr. Copp the authority to proceed with the construction of the new psychiatric hospital at 49th Street.  In September 1928 the Board and Dr. Copp conducted a groundbreaking ceremony, which was reported in the Philadelphia newspapers as follows,167

Start On Branch of Penna. Hospital

Ground Broken in $1,500,000 Institute for Nervous Disorders

at 49th and Market

Ground was broken this morning for the new $1,500,000 Institute for Nervous Disorders of the Pennsylvania Hospital for Mental Diseases at 49th and Market streets.  The new building will be modeled after the new Philadelphia General Hospital and will be operated in much the same manner, with an outpatient department and research and clinical laboratories.  The architect is Arthur H. Brockie.

The ground-breaking ceremonies were attended by members of the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital and the spadeful of earth was turned up by Dr. Arthur V. Morton, president of the Board of Managers, and Dr. Owen Copp, former superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital and the man who planned the new institution.168 The new institution will be devoted to the study of the causes and the prevention of nervous diseases.  It will have a resident patient capacity of 120 adults and twenty-five children, with a special department for the diagnosis and treatment of nervous disorders among children.

"It is our plan," said Dr. Copp, "to give at the new institute the same facilities that the physically ill have.  We want to get at the nervous disorders of children and prevent, through early treatment, any more serious mental diseases that might occur."

"We will have an outpatient department to which any one may go for treatment and diagnosis and they will be cared for with home treatment.  There will be no commitment between the patient and the institute, the patient being free to come and go as he pleases."

"It is also planned to make the new institute a teaching center open to medical school students, physicians, nurses, welfare workers and school teachers.  We desire to be of the very greatest usefulness to the community."

"The present mental diseases departments of the Pennsylvania Hospital, now divided between 44th and 49th streets, will be combined at 44th street, leaving the new institute at 49th street a separate unit of the hospital.  The staff will be made up of teachers in medical schools, with Dr. Earl D. Bond as physician in chief."

What the newspapers did not report was that the "Institute for Mental Hygiene" represented an extraordinary partnership between Pennsylvania Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania.  Proposed by Dr. Copp and endorsed by the Hospital’s Board of Managers, the Institute took preliminary form in June 1927, when the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania took the following action,169

Resolved, That the Trustees accept the proposal of the Pennsylvania Hospital, as expressed in a letter of Mr. Arthur V. Morton, President, under date of May 17, 1927, for the establishment of an Institute for Mental and Nervous Diseases, joint direction of research and education in the proposed Institute to be exercised by the University and the Pennsylvania Hospital, and appoint a Committee, consisting of Mr. Madeira, Mr. Frazier, Dr. de Schweinitz, and the Provost, to confer with the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital on plans to carry the proposed agreement into effect.

The historical significance of the Institute was perhaps best explained by George W. Corner, in his 1965 volume, Two Centuries of Medicine: A History of the School of Medicine [of the] University of Pennsylvania,170

Until well into the 20th century, psychiatry had to be taught largely by lectures alone, because the general hospitals attended by medical students did not admit psychiatric patients to their wards.  At most, the students were shown patients during brief visits to the nearest asylum.  In this respect the University of Pennsylvania had the advantage of close relations with the Pennsylvania Hospital’s division of mental diseases.  …  However, [until 1930] there was no practical training in psychiatry, and the lectures were limited to 32 hours in the third year.

In 1927 the University trustees and the managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital began to consider a formal alliance of the Hospital’s psychiatric division, now grown into the Mental Hygiene Institute, with the University’s Department of Psychiatry.  This alliance was consummated in 1931 by an agreement under which the University’s professorship of psychiatry and the directorship of the Mental Hygiene Institute would be held by the same person.  This arrangement made it possible to organize a practical course in the fourth year of medical studies, giving the students direct experience in dealing with mental patients.  The Director of the Mental Hygiene Institute up to this time was Earl D. Bond, a Harvard-trained physician of long experience in psychiatry and neuropathology.

Earl Danford Bond (1878-1968) had succeeded Owen Copp as Physician-in-Chief and Administrator of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases in October 1922,171 when Dr. Copp assumes his new duties as consultant to the Pennsylvania Hospital.  Dr. Bond was a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, who graduated from Harvard College in 1900 and Harvard Medical School in 1908.  He came to Philadelphia in 1913 in order to join the staff of the Hospital for the Insane.  In 1919 he was named Professor of Psychiatry at the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.  In February 1930 he was simultaneously named Professor of Psychiatry in the University’s School of Medicine172 and Medical Director of the Institute for Mental Hygiene at the Pennsylvania Hospital.  The new Institute was dedicated in March 1930 and occupied in September of that year,173

Mental Hygiene Institute Opens

New Pennsylvania Hospital Department Called Unique in Field
of Preventive Science

Will Have Fund Campaign

The Institute for Mental Hygiene of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 49th and Market sts., will be formally opened this afternoon.

Civic and business leaders and men well known in medical circles will be guests of honor at the exercises.  The speakers are Dr. Haven Emerson, professor of public health administration at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York; Dr. Theodore D. Appel, secretary of the Pennsylvania State Board of Health; and Mayor Mackey.  Dr. Emerson was director of the Hospital and Health Survey recently conducted under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce here.

The medical director of the new institution will be Dr. Earl D. Bond.  Dr. Bond states that it is new and unique in the field of preventive science, which will give a tremendous impulse to the study of mental and nervous disorders in this part of the country.

"It is intended to be a place where the things learned in the study of psychiatry can be applied to everyday life," he said.  "It will try to keep its patients at home and at work, and will treat the medical aspects of wrong ideas and attitudes which keep men and women from being efficient."

The structure probably will be ready for occupancy within a few weeks.  Besides its complete equipment as a general hospital, it will have rest and recreation rooms and special equipment for its type of work.  Through an arrangement with the University of Pennsylvania Medical School all the training of students in this particular field of work will be carried on at the new building.

A campaign to raise funds for the new building and for the new Lying-In Hospital at 8th and Spruce sts. will be conducted by the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital from March 7 to March 17.

In the summer of 1930, as part of the opening of the new Institute building, the Department moved its long-term male patients from 49th Street to the 44th Street facility.  This consolidated all long-term patients at the original 1841 building and freed the 1859 building for uses related to the Institute.  The West Philadelphia campus was thereby effectively divided between the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases at 44th Street and the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital at 49th Street.  This division would have significant influence on the Hospital’s future development in West Philadelphia.

It is useful to observe and reflect upon the fact that by 1930 all long-term patients could be housed and treated in one building.  Data from the U.S. decennial censuses of 1910, 1920, and 1930 are useful measures of major changes in the Department’s practice of psychiatry.  As noted above, the size of the resident population on the West Philadelphia campus peaked in or about 1910.  The census takers in that year174 enumerated 192 male patients on 49th Street and 254 female patients at 44th Street, a total of 446 resident patients.  There were 119 resident staff – ranging from physicians to groundskeepers – at the 49th Street facility and 172 resident staff at 44th Street, a total of 291 resident staff.  Ten years later,175 under the administration of Owen Copp, the numbers were 151 male patients and 188 female patients, a total of 339 resident patients.  There were 63 members of the staff at 49th Street and 128 staff at 44th Street, a total of 191 resident staff.  In 1930,176 under the administration of Earl Bond, there were only 87 male patients and only 139 female patients, a total of 226 resident patients.  There were 129 resident staff at 49th Street and exactly 100 resident staff at 44th Street, a total of 229 resident staff.  These statistics suggest that the treatment of mental illness changed significantly in the first quarter of the 20th century.  More and more patients, it seems, were treated on an out-patient basis.  This was certainly true of the philosophy behind the new Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital.  In the words of Dr. Packard,177

The natural out-growth of long thinking by the psychiatrists of the hospital, the Institute in its last stage of development took on a new – and unique – form.  In 1841, in 1885, in 1912 the advantages of treating mild cases of nervous disorder early were emphasized by spokesmen for the mental patients.  In 1929, however, as the construction of the new buildings advanced, there was a new swing over to the side of the normal.  Is not the fundamental need the treatment of those every-day people who want help in their adjustments to their families and their work?

To this new group of patients the Institute was opened in 1930, formally in March, actually in September.  The first floor, opening on 49th Street, was devoted to out-patients and the private patients of the physicians.  The second and third floors were rooms for patients, arranged and managed as club or hotel rooms.  The fourth floor housed occupational therapy and contained two roof gardens.  Physio-therapy occupied the basement.  The older buildings, to which the Institute was attached, were made into laboratories, a nurses’ home, and the Franklin School for young children.

From the first the patients coming to the Institute were above expectations in the normalness of their problems and in abilities.  Some of the commoner problems have been sleeplessness, fatigue, depressions, feelings of inferiority, and difficulties in getting on with other people.  The patients have been decidedly above the average in intelligence and in other gifts.

With the opening of the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Owen Copp achieved the primary goal he had set before the Hospital’s Board of Managers back in 1922.  The record of his several accomplishments was exemplary.  His well-researched planning, long-term fundraising, and close supervision of the construction of new buildings had transformed the Hospital’s West Philadelphia campus.  His initiatives in teaching and research had concluded in an extraordinary collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine.  At his urging, the Trustees and senior academic administrators of the University had established a Department of Psychiatry and effectively placed Dr. Copp’s protégés in charge.  Dr. Earl D. Bond was the pioneer, the first Professor of Psychiatry and the first chair of the new Department of Psychiatry, but within his first year he was joined by the Institute’s Dr. Edward A. Strecker, who was also named Professor of Psychiatry and succeeded Dr. Bond as chair of the Department.  Dr. Strecker, who continued as chair of the Department for twenty-two years, left a remarkable legacy, as described at some length in the 1965 history of the School of Medicine,178

Strecker was a Philadelphian and a graduate of Jefferson Medical College, where, until the University called him, he was professor of nervous and mental diseases.  A man of wide-ranging interests in the social as well as the strictly medical aspects of mental disease, Strecker wrote (with Kenneth E. Appel of his Department) a successful textbook of psychiatry.  He also wrote and spoke extensively, for both professional and lay audiences, on the problems of alcoholism and on military psychiatry and the rehabilitation of the psychiatric patient.

Just before Strecker was appointed to his Pennsylvania chair, Earl Bond, who, apparently, had originally been expected to conduct the teaching of psychiatry in the undergraduate School of Medicine, planned a program of instruction for the second through the fourth years of the medical course, intended to link the study of mental disease with the preclinical sciences and general medicine throughout the course.  It fell to Strecker to carry out and extend this revolutionary program.  With the cooperation of the faculty, and especially of Vice-President Stengel, lectures on psychology and personality problems were given in the first year, lectures on general psychiatry in the second year, clinical demonstrations in the third and ward work with patients in the fourth year.

By the time Dr. Strecker retired in 1953, Penn’s Department of Psychiatry had grown enormous, with more than 100 names of standing faculty, associates, instructors, and fellows in psychiatry listed in that year’s edition of the Bulletin of the School of Medicine.179 All of this originated with Dr. Owen Copp in the 1920s.  Historians of the Pennsylvania Hospital have generally credited Thomas Story Kirkbride with being the most influential and historically significant person in the Hospital’s work in West Philadelphia, but while that may be true of the 19th century, it was Owen Copp who made the great changes of the 20th. 

With its new facilities, University-endorsed physicians, and innovative approaches to patient care, the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital commanded great respect from the very day it opened in September 1930.  The Institute’s Director, Dr. Earl D. Bond, was seen as one of Philadelphia’s leading citizens.  In 1933, less than three years after the opening of the Institute, the Trustees of the Philadelphia Award, the most prestigious honor in the City, selected Dr. Bond as its recipient.  The Philadelphia Award was (and is) conferred upon the person who performs the "highest community service in Philadelphia."  Dr. Bond’s commitment to the work of the Institute was reflected in his use of the $10,000 prize: he turned it over to the Institute to further its research in mental health.180 Dr. Bond continued as Administrator and Physician-in-Chief of the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases and also as Director of the Institute until October, 1938, when he resigned both positions in order to give his full time to the position of Medical Director of Research.181 His legacy was that of "an active program of probing into the causes of mental illness and integrating the rapidly developing specialty of psychiatry into the life of the community."182

1938 to 1959: Hard Times and the Breakup of the West Philadelphia Campus

Lauren Howe Smith (1901 – 1979) succeeded Dr. Bond as Administrator and Physician-in-Chief of the Department and Director of the Institute.183 Dr. Smith was a native of Cherokee County, Iowa and a 1925 graduate of what is today the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.  In 1925-26 he interned in psychiatry under Dr. Samuel T. Orton, Director of the Iowa State Psychopathic Hospital (a 1921 outgrowth of the University of Iowa Hospital).  In 1926 Dr. Smith came to the Pennsylvania Hospital to begin his practice.  He soon won the confidence of Dr. Bond and the other physicians in the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases and in 1931 he became an executive member of the staffs of both the Department and the Institute.  He also became associated with University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Medicine, where he served as Chair of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, as well as the University’s historical School of Medicine, where he served as Professor of Psychiatry.  He retired from his posts at the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1962 and became, like Dr. Copp before him, Consultant for Medical Development at the Institute.  Dr. Smith continued his teaching and research, however, and did not retire from his Penn professorship until July 1969, when he was named Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry.

The practice of reducing the number of long-term resident patients, introduced in the 1910s and 1920s, was greatly advanced in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when physicians and pharmaceutical companies began to develop psychotropic medications which demonstrably reduced the symptoms of mental illness.  The medical community, which was committed to trying to improve the lives of people who were residents in psychiatric institutions, now led the way in a movement to close hospitals for the mentally ill and to discharge patients into the community.  Dr. Smith and his colleagues at the Institute joined this movement, which was commonly known as deinstitutionalization.  In January 1963, for example, the Pennsylvania Hospital and the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, an organization which advocated for the mentally ill, jointly announced the following,184

Lauren H. Smith, M.D., Consultant for Medical Development at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, has accepted the chairmanship of the planning committee of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania.  The purpose of the committee is to discuss the organizing of local conferences for the study of decentralization of state hospitals in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  The Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania is backing such studies in order to be of every possible aid.

Ten months later, in October 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act.  "If we apply our medical knowledge and social insights fully," President Kennedy stated, "all but a small portion of the mentally ill can eventually achieve a wholesome and a constructive social adjustment."  With the Federal government’s backing, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill became national policy.

While Dr. Smith and others at the Institute were local leaders in the deinstitutionalization movement, Pennsylvania Hospital found itself in a more complicated situation.  Beginning in 1948, the Hospital’s Board of Managers gradually sold the land surrounding its 44th Street facility, a process which culminated in 1957 with the decision to sell the 1841 building and the remaining land and to build a new psychiatric hospital at 49th Street to house long-term patients.  The multi-million-dollar new hospital – the North Building – opened in 1959, just four years before the deinstitutionalization movement won Federal funding.  In 1963 Pennsylvania Hospital found itself with large physical plant obligations in West Philadelphia, just as the mental health institutions began to discharge their patients into society.

Between 1948 and 1959 the story of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases and the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital unfolded in five parts, all but the last of them against the backdrop of financial hardship.  Unlike its 19th century predecessor, the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital failed to generate revenue equal to its expense.  A decade of annual deficits in the 1930s led to great concern on the part of the Hospital’s Board of Managers.  In the years following World War II, the Board exercised tight control, subjecting even minor expenditures to close scrutiny.  When an opportunity to make money presented itself, the Managers were ready to listen.

These were the circumstances when, in October 1948,  a major Philadelphia real estate firm – Albert M. Greenfield, Realtor – spoke to one of the Managers of the Hospital and proposed negotiating – on behalf of an unnamed, but large, Philadelphia corporate client – the purchase of nearly ten acres of the Hospital’s West Philadelphia campus.  The buyer sought "a strip of Hospital ground running approximately 1,300 feet on 46th Street between Market Street and Haverford Avenue, 300 feet deep and covering approximately 9½ acres."185 This land was located on the east side of 46th Street, opposite the corporate headquarters of the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company.  According to the Greenfield firm, the buyer intended to build a modern office building on the site.  The Greenfield offer to the Pennsylvania Hospital seems to have been entirely unexpected.  It was certainly not planned.  The President convened a special meeting of the Board of Managers.  Dr. Smith was also invited to attend.  The Managers sought the views of Dr. Smith and he stated that he approved the sale, but with seven qualifications, most of them very practical, but one of which was that after this sale, no additional West Philadelphia land be sold.  With Dr. Smith’s endorsement, the Board voted unanimously to sell the property.  The Managers set the price at $275,000 and insisted that any commission paid to the realtor be the responsibility of the buyer.  Three weeks later, at the next meeting of the Board, the President reported that an agreement of sale had been signed.186 The buyer was Philadelphia’s prestigious Insurance Company of North America (still headquartered in Philadelphia in 2009, this company is now known as CIGNA).  Settlement took place in early January 1949.187

Pennsylvania Hospital’s quick decision to sell some of its West Philadelphia land may have had unintended consequences.  It seemed to suggest that not all of its land was needed for Hospital purposes.  In addition, the ground purchased by the Insurance Company of North America included the athletic fields the Drexel Institute of Technology had rented from the Hospital for more than twenty years.  In effect, the sale evicted Drexel’s athletic program from its facilities.  Drexel officials immediately contacted the Hospital to discuss an alternate site.  The City of Philadelphia also seemed to notice.  It proposed a public playground on Hospital land at the southwest corner of 42nd Street and Haverford Avenue and initiated condemnation proceedings.  The Hospital’s Board of Managers responded promptly.  Seeking the greatest possible value for its West Philadelphia assets, the Managers unanimously adopted the following resolution,188

Resolved, That the President be and he is hereby authorized to appoint a special committee with power (a) to negotiate and conclude a sale to Drexel Institute of the property of the hospital lying between Haverford Avenue, 42nd Street, Powelton Avenue, Market Street, and 44th Street as projected, subject to the abandonment by the city of the condemnation proceedings for a portion of the property, and (b) to deal with and handle the condemnation proceedings, the abandonment thereof or the assessment of damages because of the condemnation in such a manner as they may deem advisable and in connection therewith, to employ representatives, experts and attorneys.

It is interesting to note that in making this second sale of West Philadelphia land, the Managers seem not to have consulted with Dr. Smith.  They knew that Dr. Smith would have objected to selling the land, but they probably believed that the City’s action had, in any case, compelled them to sell or lose part of the land’s value.  Their committee’s negotiation with the Drexel Institute was successful and at the regular January meeting of the Board, the Managers unanimously adopted a resolution to sell approximately 18.3 acres to the school for $225,000, that is, the entire eastern end of the West Philadelphia campus.189 Settlement took place in the last week of February 1949.190 Sixty years later Drexel still owns this land.  In 2009 it is known as the Vidas Athletic Complex of Drexel University.

The third part of the story was controversial.  An elevated railway had stood over Market Street since 1906.  In 1948 the City of Philadelphia decided to put the railway underground from the Schuylkill River as far west as 46th Street.  A significant issue, however, confronted the City’s planners, architects and engineers.  How should the railway be brought up and out of its new West Philadelphia tunnel to meet the existing elevated tracks at 46th Street?  If it was brought up in the middle of Market Street it would block automobile, truck, and pedestrian access to and thereby effectively close two blocks of commercial buildings.  West Philadelphia businessmen and neighborhood improvement associations objected strongly to this plan, but the City seemed to decide that this was the best option available.  Then, in May 1949, the City changed course and proposed to "loop" the railway north of Market Street and not disturb the business and commerce along the Street between 44th and 46th Streets.  This second proposal, however, meant running the railway through the property of the Pennsylvania Hospital.  Though the minutes of the Hospital’s Board of Managers are silent on this issue through the summer months of June, July, and August, 1949, the President of the Board, Sydney P. Clark,191 spoke out in protest,192

Hospital Fears Ruin from Plan to Shift Subway

Revised Proposal May Force 3 Buildings to Close,
Officials Say

The City’s new plan to loop the Market st. subway-elevated through the grounds of Pennsylvania Hospital’s West Philadelphia branch was assailed yesterday by the institution as a "program of ruination."

Officials of the hospital said that it will force them to shut two buildings and "ruin the quality and standard of care" for patients.  The branch, founded in 1841, is the hospital’s Department of Nervous and Mental Diseases.  It is on a 37-acre tract between Market st. and Haverford av., and from 44th st. towards 46th.

Under the plan announced in May, the new tube will swing underground to the north at 42nd and Market sts. and into the grounds of the hospital.  It will curve under Powelton av. to surface near the hospital entrance at 44th st. and Powelton av.  The tracks will then swing to Market st. and connect with the El just east of 46th st.

The City had intended to have the subway come out of the ground directly in the center of Market st. near 42nd and to build an incline to the El tracks.  Lawrence Costello, director of city transit, announced abandonment of this plan in favor of the hospital loop May 28th, just as the City was about to let contracts for it.  Costello also disclosed that the new plan will mean the demolition of about 30 homes on the north side of Market st. east of Powelton av.

Sydney P. Clark, president of Pennsylvania Hospital, assailed the new program as "unnecessary, costly and unjustified by the need."

"Why ruin this great institution," he declared, "especially at a time when there is already a shortage of space in Philadelphia mental hospitals?"  If the plan is carried out, Clark said, the noise and vibration from the trains will force the hospital to close the Shields’ Building, with 28 rooms, and the Fisher’s Building, containing 14 rooms.  This will mean the loss of about a third of all the beds in the entire hospital, he added.

"To erect new buildings elsewhere on the grounds," said Clark, "would require a capital investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars which would have to be financed by the City or the public."  He declared, too, that the loop would mean the loss of the hospital’s most valuable strip of ground, the section fronting on Market st.  This would force the hospital to build a new entrance along Haverford av., he said.

The City disputed Clark’s public statements, arguing that he was exaggerating the threat to the wellbeing of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases.  In September the City took the first official step towards condemning the Hospital’s grounds for use by the railway loop and the Hospital’s Board of Managers responded by taking the following action,193

Mr. Clark reported the adoption on September 22, by City Council of the following resolution concerning the Market Street Subway Extension:

Resolved, by the Council of the City of Philadelphia, that it is the consensus of opinion of the members of City Council after Public hearing that the proposed loop plan for the extension of the Market Street Subway in West Philadelphia be hereby approved by City Council and that the Director of City Transit is hereby authorized and directed to proceed with the necessary plans and specifications to carry out the intention of this resolution.

On motion the President and Real Estate Committee were empowered to engage real estate appraiser or appraisers, and counsel if necessary, to appear before the Board of Review in the matter of condemnation of our West Philadelphia 44th Street property involved in the above proposed extension of the Market Street Subway.

It is notable that the Board of Managers did not contest the City’s action in court – as it surely would have done if this had happened in the 19th century – but rather seemed to accept the decision and to begin preparations for winning the best possible award from the Board of View.

In early October, 1949, City Council moved forward with the "loop plan" and adopted ordinances which would provide for condemnation proceedings,194

Council OK’s Subway Loop

28 Homes, Gas Station Will Be Razed

City Council yesterday gave final approval to two ordinances clearing the way for construction of the Market st. subway loop through the grounds of Pennsylvania Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases near 44th st.

One measure provided for the condemnation of 22 dwellings and a gas station on the north side of Market st. and two houses on Powelton av. as well as some of the hospital ground fronting on Market st. between 42nd and 46th sts.  A companion bill gave the City the right to acquire six additional properties on Powelton av. and called for the opening of 43rd st. between Market and Powelton av.  The amount of the damages to be paid for the properties will be set by a board of review.

Hospital authorities had protested that the loop would pass so close to several buildings that it would be necessary to close them.  City officials disputed the claim.

The Board of View, whose members were appointed by the Judges of Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court, did not make its determination for nearly two years, but when it did, in August 1951, the Pennsylvania Hospital chose not to fight it,195

Mr. William G. Foulke reported a damage award of $183,910 by the Board of View for condemnation of the Market Street frontage west of 44th Street.  After discussion of the advisability of appeal to the Court of Common Pleas, and the risks involved in submitting the matter to a jury, the following resolution was passed by unanimous vote:

Resolved, That it is the decision of this body not to appeal from the award of the Board of View dated August 13, 1951, in the sum of $183,910 unless the City appeals, and in the event of appeal by the City, that the President, or the Vice-President, or the Secretary, or William G. Foulke is authorized on behalf of the hospital to execute necessary appeal forms.

It would be four more years before the Market Street "subway loop" was completed and put into operation, but the Pennsylvania Hospital decided not to wait for the outcome.  The fourth part of the breakup of the West Philadelphia campus took place in 1950 and 1951 (though it was not fully implemented until 1959).

In December 1949, at the urging of its President, Sydney P. Clark, the Hospital’s Board of Managers acted to professionalize the executive of the Hospital.196 The Board established the new, salaried office of Executive Vice President of the Hospital and appointed Hugh J. Casey197 to the post, effective January 1950.  News of the appointment made the New York Times,198

MacArthur Aide to Run Hospital

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 3 (AP)

An Army engineer who was one of the small party that escaped with Gen. Douglas MacArthur from Corregidor is to be the new executive officer of the Pennsylvania Hospital.  He is Maj. Gen. Hugh J. Casey, a 51-year-old veteran of thirty-four years in the Army.  On Thursday he took over as chief of the Ohio River Division, Army Engineers.  He announced he would resign from the Army to accept the hospital post on Dec. 31.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the Pennsylvania Hospital had struggled to keep balanced the annual budgets of the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases and the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital.  In most years both units of the Hospital operated on a deficit basis.  President Clark and the other Managers asked their new Executive Vice President to survey the institution and find economies wherever he could.  In August 1950, the Managers adopted the following resolution,199

Resolved, that the authorities of the West Philadelphia Departments be requested to make a study of the feasibility and cost of combining operations of the hospitals at 44th and 49th Streets.

This report to be submitted to the October meeting of the Board.

Casey prepared the report in a timely manner and presented it to the Board of Managers at their October meeting.  It would prove to be a historical watershed for the Hospital’s presence in West Philadelphia,200

The Executive Vice President introduced his study concerning the feasibility and approximate cost of combining the entire West Philadelphia Department on the Institute’s property at 49th Street.  The Board adopted the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Board approves in principle the findings and recommendations of the Executive Vice President’s report and authorizes the proper officers and committees to take such action as they may deem necessary to proceed with the program to obtain layout studies and cost estimates by an architect, to determine the best method of investigating the possible sale of 44th Street and a proper sale price therefor, and to consider plans for financing construction.

At each of its next two meetings the Board of Managers advanced Casey’s plan.  A special meeting of the Board was held in November 1950, at which time,201

Consideration was given to the employment of an architect in connection with possible building operations in the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases and after due discussion, Messrs. [Theodore E.] Seelye and [William G.] Foulke, General [Hugh J.] Casey, and Dr. Lauren H. Smith were requested to interview the firm of George M. Ewing and also Sydney E. Martin and to engage the same at their discretion either with or without a consultant, if they are satisfied that the firm is qualified and able to proceed promptly in an advisory capacity with the outline of proposed structures so as to present tentative floor plans by the middle of January 1951.

At the regular December meeting,202

President Clark reported for the Committee on Building for the West Philadelphia Department that Mr. Sydney E. Martin had been interviewed and had been requested to present preliminary plans for the amalgamation of the two Departments on the present Institute grounds.  The plans were spread on the table and explained to the members of the Board.

The Board approved engaging the services of Mr. Martin to make a study of the West Philadelphia Plant with recommendations as to additional buildings and preliminary plans for the development of new buildings in such form that they will be suitable for reproduction at a charge of 3½ times the amount disbursed to draftsmen, estimated at somewhere between $5,000 and $7,500, and not to exceed $7,500.

It was Hugh J. Casey then who persuaded the Board of Managers to combine the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases with the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital and to offer the 44th Street property for sale.  He did so, not because of the City of Philadelphia’s exercise of its power of eminent domain, but as a long-term effort to reduce the Hospital’s costs in West Philadelphia.  His plan, however, rapidly lost momentum after January 1951, when he resigned his position at the Hospital after just thirteen months on the job.203

Three months later, in April 1951, the Pennsylvania Hospital again hired a career military officer as its executive officer.204 Vice Admiral Robert M. Griffin205 became Executive Vice President of the Hospital on 1 June 1951.  He served as the Hospital’s spokesperson in October of that year, when the plan to sell the 44th Street property became public,206

'Kirkbride's' Put Up for Sale

State Will Inspect It, 2 Other Hospital Sites

The Pennsylvania Hospital’s Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases at 44th and Market is for sale as a "single-package proposition."  The purchaser must take the buildings along with the 26.75 acres on which they are located, Vice Admiral Robert M. Griffin, USN (retired), executive vice president of the Pennsylvania Hospital, said today.

Details of the proposed sale became known yesterday after it was named as one of three sites here to be inspected for possible use as state mental hospitals.  It was announced in Harrisburg that Welfare Secretary William C. Brown will head a group that will make the inspections October 10.  The other two sites are the present Lankenau Hospital, Corinthian and Girard avs., and the Widener mansion in Elkins Park.

Griffin said no definite sale figure has been arrived at, but that it would be somewhere near $2,000,000.  If the sale can be made, the hospital would transfer the department to new buildings which it would construct on the 25-acre tract at 49th and Market, where the Pennsylvania Hospital Institute for Mental Hygiene is located.  Griffin emphasized that the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases, known historically as "Kirkbride’s," would continue operating in its present position until any proposed new buildings were ready for occupancy.

He said the proposed sale was the result of five years’ serious study by the board of managers and was largely because of economies they hope could be effected by operating the two institutions in a single framework.  "In the old days, when costs were less, it was very pleasant to have two big, sprawling places, but now it’s expensive.  We can cut down on the number of people to run them by combining them as a single operation," Griffin declared.

The Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases has a 217-bed hospital, power plant and other buildings.  It takes long-term patients.  The 94-bed Institute is for more transitory cases of nervous disorders.

Griffin said the condemnation by the city of 1.85 acres of the 44th st. side to provide a ramp from which the Market st. subway trains will emerge from the ground was not a factor in the board’s decision to sell.

Griffin emphasized that the construction of the new buildings and transfer of the department is contingent on the sale price.  He explained: "The price must include both buildings and ground.  That is necessary because a substantial amount of the funds to construct the new buildings must come from the sale.  In the past, prospective purchasers have only wanted the ground."

The retired admiral disclosed that Albert M. Greenfield & Co. has been assigned to exploring the possibilities of sale.  "We haven’t advertised it yet, but if someone comes along with the right sum and lays it on the line, we’re ready to go to town," Griffin declared.

Though the Hospital’s Board of Managers had not invested "five years’ serious study" on the issue, the rationale for sale explained by Admiral Griffin – "economies" achieved by combining at one location both the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases and the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital – was indeed the Board’s position.  The Board had arrived at that conclusion on the basis of the financial performance of the two West Philadelphia units of the Hospital.  While the Hospital had publicly and strongly opposed it, the City’s decision to take the Market Street frontage of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases for the Market Street did not seem to be the decisive factor in the Hospital’s decision to sell the entire 44th Street property.

In any case, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not purchase the 44th Street property and the Hospital’s conditions and price apparently discouraged any other potential developer.  The Hospital continued the operations of the Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases even as construction of the new subway commenced, advanced, and in October 1955, was completed,207

Major improvements in highspeed transit
will soon be ready to serve you.

Market Street Subway
extended to 46th St.

Beginning Monday, October 31

 

Surface-Car Subway
extended to 40th St. & Woodland Ave.

Eastbound
Beginning Monday, October 17

Westbound
Beginning Monday, November 7

The dream of extending the Market Street Subway into West Philadelphia, permitting removal of the bridge over the Schuylkill and all of the Elevated structure east of 46th st., will become a reality this month.  It is a dream that has persisted for a number of years, during which time the plans were improved and the undertaking was expanded to include an extension of the surface-car subway to 40th st. & Woodland ave.

These twin highspeed transit improvements, projects of the City of Philadelphia in which PTC has collaborated, will furnish faster service for thousands of riders of the subway-surface lines and help speed traffic in the University of Pennsylvania – Drexel Institute of Technology – Pennsylvania Station area, where some of the worst bottlenecks in the city exist.  They will also change the face of Market st. west of the Schuylkill River.

You will soon be riding in these new facilities.  And if you are a subway-surface rider, you have the further advantage of riding in the modern, streamlined cars that have been running on the subway-surface lines since early in September.

Three months earlier, that is, in July 1955, the Hospital finally found a buyer.  It was the City of Philadelphia, with funding from the Federal government,208

Kirkbride’s Tract Sought for Public Housing

The 114-year-old West Philadelphia branch of Pennsylvania Hospital is being considered as the site of a 900-unit, low-rent, public housing project.  This was disclosed today in an announcement by the Philadelphia Housing Authority that it has received approval by the Public Housing Administration of funds to acquire the site, used by the hospital’s Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases.  The large tract, bounded by Market st., Haverford av., 42nd and 46th sts., comprises 26.75 acres, and has been known historically as Kirkbride’s.

Approval of the funds was contained in an allocation by the Public Housing Administration of up to $28,500,000 to the local authority for erection of a total of 1,897 units in six projects.  Walter E. Alessandroni, executive director of the authority, said that approval of the program was received here by telegram on the deadline for federal annual assistance contract for 1954-55.  Alessandroni said that although the $28,500,000 includes the money to buy the hospital site, final approval of it is contingent upon review with West Philadelphia civic leaders and organizations and a public hearing to be held in September.

Negotiations toward acquisition of the site by the authority have been going on through Albert M. Greenfield & Co.  They have not been concluded.  Meanwhile, the hospital is already studying means of relocating its facilities in the event that the housing development goes through.  If the authority should decide not to proceed with the hospital site, Alessandroni said, it is possible that the fund authorization could be used for construction at other sites.

Included in the hospital site authorization is approval of the first 275 homes to be built there.  These would be erected on part of the hospital site that is largely vacant.  The remaining area, where the other 625 would be built, would not be developed until several years later to allow time for the hospital to get another site and re-establish its facilities.

The proposal does not affect property of the hospital west of 46th st., where the hospital’s Institute, at 111 N. 49th st., is located, along with its Pre-School Unit and its Children’s and Adolescent Unit.  The hospital’s Nursery School is at 4820 Haverford av., also on part of the hospital property not affected by the proposal.  …

The history of Kirkbride’s goes back to May, 1831, when Pennsylvania Hospital decided to separate its department for mentally ill patients from the other departments.  The sum of $325,000 was appropriated for the erection of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane on the present site, which at that time was a farm.  The hospital was opened on January 1, 1841, with Dr. Thomas S. Kirkbride as its physician-in-chief and superintendent.  His eminent work in the institution won wide recognition, and the hospital came to be known as Kirkbride’s because of this.  In 1919, its official name was changed to Pennsylvania Hospital Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases.

Approval for public housing on the Pennsylvania Hospital’s site did not come easily, but in March 1956 it finally did come,209

City Planners OK Housing at Kirkbride’s by 4-2 Vote

The battle over public housing at 44th and Market sts. ended yesterday afternoon when the City Planning Commission voted 4-2 to approve construction of 231 units there.  The 27-acre site, known as Kirkbride’s, is occupied by the Pennsylvania Hospital’s division of mental and nervous diseases.  If the institution can get a price around $1,000,000 for the land, it will move its facilities to new quarters built on their ground at 49th and Market sts.  Admittedly the last open area of its size left in the city available for public development, the question of what was to be done has caused a tug-of-war in all directions.

The Planning Commission indicated in an "informal poll" on February 15 that it was unanimously against any public housing on the site.  Intensive persuasion by Housing Co-ordinator William L. Rafsky and by Walter E. Alessandroni, executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, managed to save seven acres in order to utilize federal grants for the 231 units.  The city’s Recreation Department will utilize the 14 acres bordering on Haverford av. for playground and park facilities.  The remaining six acres will acquired either by the city or the school district and remain as open ground.  School officials have plans to build a vocational high school on the ten-acre tract immediately west of the hospital at the corner of 46th and Market sts.

The Housing Authority announced last July it had received authorization from Washington to build 900 units on the Kirkbride’s site.  The Planning Commission approved the idea of housing there late in July, but expressed reservations about the density involved.  Last December, the Commission again gave tentative approval to a revised plan for the area whereby only 550 units of public housing would be built and Recreation would acquire seven acres.  When the matter came up for final approval in January, however, the Planning Commission’s membership had changed substantially with the incoming Dilworth administration and substantial opposition developed to the plan.  In addition, the neighborhood civic and business groups, led by the Citizens Council on City Planning, made a strong effort on behalf of leaving the site entirely open for park and playground purposes.  With the new Planning Commission indicating that it would like to eliminate the public housing altogether, Edmund N. Bacon, its executive director, drew up the revised plan which was adopted yesterday.

Dr. James Creese, president of Drexel Institute of Technology and Commission member, yesterday made a last determined effort to block the housing project.  Dr. Creese said he felt it "inadvisable for us to go on record favoring the demolition of $3,000,000 worth of buildings."  He said Kirkbride’s buildings have a "historical significance close to that of Independence Hall" and that the open space would provide "stretching room for the neighborhood."  He moved that the Commission go on record as opposing any public housing there, but was defeated 4-3.  Voting with him were Carl Metz, builder, and G. Holmes Perkins, vice-chairman of the commission, presiding in place of chairman Albert M. Greenfield, who was ill.  Voting against the Creese proposal were Fredric P. Mann, city commerce director; Richard J. McConnell, city finance director; John A. Bailey, deputy managing director; and Robert McCay Green, attorney.

Mann led the fight for approval of the finally adopted plan, observing that some of the opposition to the public housing was "for reasons that might be controversial – but those people have to have better housing."  The final vote was the reverse of the preliminary vote, with Perkins not voting.

The way for Pennsylvania Hospital to sell its land and consolidate its psychiatric services on 49th Street was now clear.  Even so, the process took three more years to conclude.  Not until January 1957 did the Pennsylvania Hospital deed its land to the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority.  The Housing Authority paid $794,000 for the lion’s share of the property210 and the City paid $456,000 for its lesser share.211 But not until March or April 1959 did the City and its Housing Authority gain possession of the land.

The fifth part of the breakup of the West Philadelphia campus was the construction and occupancy of a new psychiatric hospital at 49th Street.  With the proceeds of its 44th Street property in hand, the Pennsylvania Hospital was finally able, in July 1957, to break ground for a new $3.3 million, five-story "North Building" at 49th and Market Streets.212 Construction required a year and a half, but in the first week of January 1959 the North Building was opened and dedicated.  Later that same month Hospital staff moved all patients from the 44th Street facilities to the new 49th Street building.  In February, the Hospital auctioned to the public all furniture and furnishings which remained in the 44th Street buildings.  The Philadelphia Housing Authority began clearing the land and in mid-April it paused long enough to permit the Pennsylvania Hospital to remove the time capsule from the cornerstone of the original 1841 building.213 At 49th Street the Hospital still owned one quarter of its West Philadelphia site and that was where it would remain for another half century.

• 137. There are at least three published histories of the Pennsylvania Hospital which trace its development in the 20th century.  The first was Francis R. Packard’s Some Account of the Pennsylvania Hospital from its first Rise to the Beginning of the Year 1938.  The Hospital re-published Packard’s work in 1957, with a "Continuation of the Account to the Year 1956" by Florence M. Greim.  See Francis R. Packard, Some Account of the Pennsylvania Hospital from its first Rise to the Beginning of the Year 1938, Second Printing, with a Continuation of the Account to the Year 1956, by Florence M. Greim (Philadelphia: Published by the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1957), at pages 119-27 (Packard) and 152-54 (Greim).  The third, a contemporary work, was Kristen A. Graham, A History of the Pennsylvania Hospital (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2008).
• 138. Biographical information presented here was drawn from two sources: an obituary published in the New York Times, in its issue of 19 April 1933, at page 18; and an obituary published in Psychiatric Quarterly 7: 3 (September 1933), at page 538.
• 139. Packard, Some Account of the Pennsylvania Hospital, at pages 123-27.
• 140. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, issue of 14 January 1919.
• 141. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 29 September 1919 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 15 (1919 – 1921); volume not paginated.
• 142. For biographical information on Dr. Strecker’s life and career, see his biographical file at the University Archives and Records Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
• 143. See the "Annual Report, Department for Mental and Nervous Diseases, West Philadelphia, for the Year Ending Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-One" (Philadelphia: Published by the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1921), at pages 13-14.
• 144. United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1910.  Microcopy T624, Roll 1397, Enumeration District 498, handwritten page numbers 1a-4a and 5a-9a (machine-stamped page numbers 138a-141a and 142a-146a) (City of Philadelphia; Wards 44 and 24, "49th Street" and "4401 Market Street," but all in Enumeration District 498).
• 145. United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1920.  Microcopy T625, Roll 1645, Enumeration District 1656, handwritten page numbers 1a-3a (machine-stamped page numbers 205a-207a) (City of Philadelphia; Ward 44; "Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, [Department for Men];" Enumeration District 1656).

  And also:  United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1920.  Microcopy T625, Roll 1627, Enumeration District 722, handwritten page numbers 1a-4a (machine-stamped page numbers 101a-104a) (City of Philadelphia; Ward 24; "Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, [Department for Women], 4401 Market Street;" Enumeration District 722).

• 146. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meetings of 27 December 1921 and 30 January 1922 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vols. 15 (1919 – 1921) and 16 (1922 – 1923); volumes not paginated.
• 147. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 29 May 1922 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 16 (1922 – 1923); volume not paginated.
• 148. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 27 November 1922 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 16 (1922 – 1923); volume not paginated.
• 149. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 28 May 1923 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 16 (1922 – 1923); volume not paginated.
• 150. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 30 July 1923 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 16 (1922 – 1923); volume not paginated.
• 151. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 25 February 1924 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 17 (1924 – 1925); volume not paginated.
• 152. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meetings of 31 March and 28 April 1924 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 17 (1924 – 1925); volume not paginated.
• 153. See William S. Ashbrook, Fifty Years: The Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia, 1865 – 1915 (Philadelphia: Published by the Company, 1915).
• 154. See the online guide to the collection titled "Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company Records" at the Hagley Museum and Library near Wilmington, Delaware.
• 155. Philadelphia Record, in its issue of 11 May 1924.
• 156. 6 June 1924.  The Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital to the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia.  $221,317.  12.2954 acres.  Recorded in Philadelphia Deed Book JMH.1827.532.
• 157. 6 July 1925.  The Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital to the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia.  $500,000.  11.0765 acres.  Recorded in Philadelphia Deed Book JMH.2174.22.
• 158. The Board authorized the Development Committee for West Philadelphia to sell the land at its meetings of 30 March and 27 April 1925.  While the minutes do not include any of the Board’s discussion of the matter, there is a clue that the decision to sell was not a popular one: at the April meeting, the vote to sell included no less than four abstentions.  See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meetings of 30 March and 27 April 1925 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 17 (1924 – 1925); volume not paginated.
• 159. Evening Public Ledger, in its issue for 6 April 1928.  The cost per acre was exactly $30,862.57.
• 160. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 17 December 1923 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 16 (1922 – 1923); volume not paginated.
• 161. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 26 July 1926 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 18 (1926); volume not paginated.
• 162. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 30 August 1926.
• 163. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 31 August 1925 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 17 (1924 – 1925); volume not paginated.
• 164. These buildings – which included a new heating, lighting and power plant, laundry, and food service facility – were substantially completed by November 1926, when Dr. Copp presented a financial summary of the project to the Board.  See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 29 November 1926 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 18 (1926); volume not paginated.  The power plant became operational on 18 January 1927 and the other functions of the service buildings became operational later that year.  See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 31 January 1927 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 19 (1927); volume not paginated.
• 165. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 28 September 1925 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 17 (1924 – 1925); volume not paginated.
• 166. Owen Copp no doubt owed much of his success with the Board of Managers to Arthur Villiers Morton (1873 – 1949), who had first been elected President of the Board in 1924.  Morton was a very successful banker, whose entire career was spent with a major Philadelphia bank, the Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities, at the southeast corner of 15th and Chestnut Streets.  Morton was also the son of Thomas George Morton, M.D., one of the Pennsylvania Hospital’s 19th century historians, and the grandson of Thomas Story Kirkbride, M.D., the founder of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.  Arthur V. Morton was deeply committed to the success of the Pennsylvania Hospital, but especially that of its West Philadelphia campus.
• 167. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 17 September 1928.
• 168. This included, of course, both the new psychiatric hospital and the previous design and construction of the support service buildings on the West Philadelphia campus: "a modern power plant, laundry, kitchen, and other service units."  See Packard, Some Account, at page 124.
• 169. See the minutes of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania for their meeting of 20 June 1927 at the University Archives and Records Center of the University of Pennsylvania, UPA 1.1; Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, 1749-present; Vol. 19 (1925 – 1929), at pages 220-21.
• 170. George W. Corner, Two Centuries of Medicine: A History of the School of Medicine [at the] University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1965), at page 290.
• 171. Packard, Some Account, at page 124.  For biographical information on Dr. Bond’s life and career, see his biographical file at the University Archives and Records Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
• 172. In order to clarify a fine point in medical history, it should be noted that in 1901 Penn’s School of Medicine appointed Charles W. Burr the first Professor of Mental Diseases.  Dr. Burr continued in that position until his retirement from the School of Medicine faculty in 1930.  Dr. Bond was the School’s first to hold the title of Professor of Psychiatry and the first chair of its Department of Psychiatry.  See Corner, Two Centuries of Medicine, at pages 203-04 and 290-91.
• 173. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 1 March 1930.
• 174. United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1910.  Microcopy T624, Roll 1397, Enumeration District 498, handwritten page numbers 1a – 4a and 5a – 9a (machine-stamped page numbers 138a – 141a and 142a – 146a) (City and County of Philadelphia; Wards 44 and 24, but all in Enumeration District 498).
• 175. United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1920.  Microcopy T625, Roll 1645, Enumeration District 1656 (49th Street only), handwritten page numbers 1a – 3a (machine-stamped page numbers 205a – 207a) (City and County of Philadelphia, Ward 44, Enumeration District 1656).

  United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1920.  Microcopy T625, Roll 1627, Enumeration District 722 (44th Street only), handwritten page numbers 1a – 4a (machine-stamped page numbers 101a – 104a) (City and County of Philadelphia, Ward 24, Enumeration District 722, "4401 Market Street").

• 176. United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930.  Microcopy T626, Roll 2138, Enumeration District 485 (49th Street only), handwritten page numbers 1a – 3a (machine-stamped page numbers 103a – 105a) (City and County of Philadelphia, Ward 44, Enumeration District 485, "111 North 49th Street").

  United States of America, Bureau of the Census.  Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930.  Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930.  Microcopy T626, Roll 2109, Enumeration District 406 (44th Street only), handwritten page numbers 1a – 3a (machine-stamped page numbers 180a – 182a) (City and County of Philadelphia, Ward 24, Enumeration District 406, "4401 Market Street").

• 177. Packard, Some Account, at pages 125-26.
• 178. Corner, Two Centuries of Medicine, at pages 290-91.
• 179. University of Pennsylvania Bulletin: School of Medicine, 1953 – 1954 (Philadelphia: Published by the University of Pennsylvania, 28 July 1953), at pages 51-54.
• 180. Morning Public Ledger of Philadelphia, in its issue for 10 February 1933.
• 181. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 8 October 1938.
• 182. Packard and Greim, Some Account, Second Edition, at page 152.
• 183. For this and additional biographical information on Dr. Smith’s life and career, see his biographical file at the University Archives and Records Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
• 184. See the news release from the Public Relations Department of the Pennsylvania Hospital, dated 2 January 1963, which may be found in the "Lauren Smith" biographical file in the collections of the University Archives and Records Center of the University of Pennsylvania at UPF 8.5, News Bureau, Box 149, File Folder 12.
• 185. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 6 October 1948 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 40 (1948); at pages 119-21.
• 186. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 25 October 1948 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 40 (1948); at page 129.
• 187. 3 January 1949.  The Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital to the Insurance Company of North America.  $275,000.  The deed described the land by metes and bounds, but not by total acreage.  Recorded in Philadelphia Deed Book CJP.2238.595.
• 188. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 29 November 1948 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 40 (1948); at page 141.
• 189. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 31 January 1949 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 41 (1949); at page 5.
• 190. 23 February 1949.  The Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital to the Drexel Institute of Technology.  $225,000.  The deed described the land by metes and bounds, but not by total acreage.  Recorded in Philadelphia Deed Book CJP.2282.165.  The property measured 18.3 acres.
• 191. Sydney Proctor Clark (1891 – 1967) succeeded David E. Williams, Jr. as President of the Board of Managers in May 1946.  Clark was a partner and officer in his family’s Philadelphia investment banking company, E.W. Clark & Co. 
• 192. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 31 July 1949.
• 193. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 26 September 1949 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 41 (1949); at page 61.
• 194. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 7 October 1949.
• 195. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 7 September 1951 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 43 (1951); at page 75.
• 196. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 28 December 1949 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 41 (1949); at pages 81-82.
• 197. Hugh J. Casey (1898 – 1981), who was born in Brooklyn, New York, was a career soldier in the U.S. Army.  He graduated in 1918 from the United States Military Academy at West Point.  At the time of the 1920 U.S. Census, in January 1920, he was a Lieutenant at Humphrey’s Military Camp in Fairfax, Virginia.  During the 1920s and 1930s he headed a number of military engineering projects.  In 1937 he was assigned to Manila as a military engineering adviser to the Philippine Government, where he served under General Douglas McArthur.  During World War II he was McArthur’s chief military engineer. 
• 198. New York Times, in its issue for 4 December 1949, at page 86.
• 199. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 28 August 1950 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 42 (1950); at page 61.
• 200. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 30 October 1950 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 42 (1950); at page 75.
• 201. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 22 November 1950 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 42 (1950); at page 77.
• 202. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 27 December 1950 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 42 (1950); at pages 93-95.
• 203. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 29 January 1951 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 43 (1951); at page 3.  The New York Times, in its issue for 9 February 1951, at page 39, reported that Casey left the Pennsylvania Hospital to become assistant to the president at Schenley Laboratories, Inc., the pharmaceutical subsidiary of the major New York liquor company, Schenley Industries.
• 204. See the minutes of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital for their meeting of 30 April 1951 at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collections, Section I, Series 1; Board of Managers, 1751-1975; Vol. 43 (1951); at page 27.
• 205. Robert Melville Griffin (1890-1976), a native of Richmond, Virginia, graduated in 1911 from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.  The New York Times, in its issue for 1 May 1951, at page 49, reported the hiring of Griffin by the Pennsylvania Hospital.  The Times article stated that Griffin "served with General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in Japan as commander of Far Eastern naval forces" and also, that in 1948 he returned "to the United States to assume the presidency of the Naval Examining and Naval Retiring Board."  The Pennsylvania Hospital recruited Griffin from the latter position.  Griffin retired from the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1957, moved to Washington, D.C. and died there on 30 January 1976.
• 206. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 2 October 1951.
• 207. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 29 October 1955.
• 208. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 29 October 1955.
• 209. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, in its issue for 22 March 1956.
• 210. 10 January 1957.  The Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital to the Philadelphia Housing Authority.  $794,000.  The deed described the land by metes and bounds, but not by total acreage.  Recorded in Philadelphia Deed Book CAB.476.386.  The property measured 16.88 acres.
• 211. 10 January 1957.  The Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital to the City of Philadelphia.  $456,000.  The deed described the land by metes and bounds, but not by total acreage.  Recorded in Philadelphia Deed Book CAB.475.163.  The property measured 9.98 acres.
• 212. For this date and the dates which follow in the next three sentences, see the timeline published in Graham, A History of the Pennsylvania Hospital, at page 115.
• 213. This information found in the caption to a photograph, citation as follows.  "Opening the cornerstone from the Institute’s 44th Street building before its demolition, April 15, 1959.  Left to Right: Dr. Lauren H. Smith, T. Truxtun Hare, Jr., and Henry W. Large.  The 44th Street Building of the Institute, the original structure built as the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, was demolished in 1959 when the City of Philadelphia exercised its right of eminent domain and took over the property for its subway project."  Photo by Robert S. Halvey, Hospital Photographer.  (Image #1527.2)