Pd. 1
4/26/22
Modern Mythology 2022
Literacy and Learning
Living Ghosts
I think that most people like Halloween. It’d be hard not to find some sort of joy in a holiday that lets you dress up as your favorite character and run from door to door collecting candy. The streets are lined with jack-o-lanterns, houses covered in fake cobwebs and mechanical spiders from Home Depot. I remember, there was one house not too far from mine where the man who lived there would turn his driveway into a mini haunted house, daring any children who enter to face creepy crawlies in search of the greatest treasure of all: chocolate. However, whereas most people eventually grow out of it and turn in their superhero capes and princess tiaras for nights in of devouring discount variety packs by the handful, Halloween still has as much of a grip on me now as it did then.
Maybe it came from a lack of group trick-or-treating as a kid, or from being exposed to a bit too much Monster High, but now that I’m older I’ve found an extreme fascination with all things spooky. Within the past year or two I’ve dived headfirst into horror movies and unsolved mysteries, paranormal investigations and games meant to keep you afraid of the dark. What has had the strongest grip on me though, are the iconic monsters that pop up each Halloween season. Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, witches (witches in particular have become an obsession), any creature that’s meant to horrify and bewitch its audience. That’s part of why I wanted to be a part of this class in the first place, aside from the fact that any course with the name “Monsters and the Apocalypse” is bound to be more interesting than any other standard English class. It’s also why, when I learned we were going to be having lessons on the nature of ghosts, I was over the moon.
Whatever expectations I had about these ghost-centric lessons were immediately thrown out the window when I first opened the slideshow. The powerpoint itself started out with a New Yorker article titled “Reasons to Believe in Ghosts in America” by Nathan Heller in 2017. It’s a short article, about two and a half pages, that treats ghosts not as spirits stuck in limbo to haunt the living, but as metaphorical creatures. The “hauntings” as he puts it, are not so much caused by forsaken loved ones but by our own storied pasts. While I personally think the author loses his point a bit as the article continues, that perception of ghosts stuck with me throughout the lesson. It especially stuck out to me as I made it to the second to last slide, a call to action for our groups to explore the deeply haunted nature of Staten Island. As someone who lives here, I was aware of one or two ghost stories before ever looking into it. However, considering the subject matter of the article, one particular haunt came to mind almost immediately.
The Willowbrook State School was established in 1947, with the intent of aiding those with developmental disabilities. The school was one of the largest of its kind, depicting itself towards the public as a safe haven for those who couldn’t take care of themselves. In actuality, residents were treated extremely poorly by staff, ranging from negligence to outright physical abuse. On top of this the school was constantly past capacity, and received more and more budget cuts as each year went past. The then Senator Robert F. Kennedy himself called the home a “snakepit.” Employees and state officials both refused to make any real change about it until public outcry forced their hands in the 70’s, leading to a slew of lawsuits that ended with the facility closing its doors in 1987. What remains of the school now resides on the campus of the College of Staten Island (CSI).
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that people have had their fair share of sightings and paranormal experiences at these places. I’m sure that many visitors to CSI and surrounding areas have felt cold spots, seen figures ghosting by the windows. However, I chose the Willowbrook State School not because it goes bump in the night, but specifically because of one big similarity that it shares with Heller’s site of Savannah, Georgia. That similarity being it is a site of great tragedy. Heller writes that he believes we fascinate ourselves with ghost stories to avoid what really haunts us, his primary example being Savannah, Georgia. He writes that the town was Georgia’s largest slave port and market, and states:
“But is superstition really the right word for such a thing? It reveals a lot, perhaps, that, when the citizens of a Southern town report feeling strange paroxysms when they walk over the bones of humans raised as chattel, the only options seem to be that there is something ectoplasmic going on or that they’re nuts.”
While I would never compare the devastation of one great tragedy to another, I do think that the Willowbrook State School especially holds a lot more recent power as the facility only closed its doors less than fifty years ago. Following Heller’s beliefs, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that those who make their way to the Willowbrook grounds may feel a similar discomfort. Especially when the consequences of the school’s misconduct still lay heavy today.
There’s a New York Times article from only about two years ago, titled “Beatings, Burns and Betrayal: The Willowbrook Scandal’s Legacy” by Benjamin Weisner. The article covers how the nearly 2,300 alumni of the institution still continue to face abuse and mistreatment all these years later, despite state vows to protect them. When you hear about the Willowbrook State School though, you don’t really hear about what happened to the people. What you hear is a story. An upsetting tale that’s passed around to college students and prying eyes. You get recollections of ghosts and wails and things that go bump in the mind. Hardly ever do people wonder, let alone ask, what happened to the victims of the terrible misconduct that occurred. It’s a type of erasing history in my opinion. We’d rather focus on the spectacle of abuse than the victims, on preventing other tragedies like this from happening in the future. Smoke and mirrors distract us from this very real thing.
I don’t think I believe in ghosts, at least not the spiritual concept of them. However, I think the alumnis of the Willowbrook State School are the closest I will ever come to seeing a ghost. They haunt us, yet we pay them no mind. They stay silent and invisible to us, our only knowledge that they’re there being old tales told of their misery. Unlike specters though, they are real. They are alive. What upsets me most is that people don’t see that.
Nathan Heller Article: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ICJmaIBUWTBNuJNYE5aMYqw8CO4cl0_b/view
New York Times Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/nyregion/willowbrook-state-school-staten-island.html
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