Annette John-Hall: Chipping away at walls

The sad truth is: Sometimes it takes something as unspeakable as a tragedy just to get us to talk to each other.

I'm hoping that the July 18 killing of Corey Moody, 38, a groundskeeper at the Kirkbride Center in West Philadelphia, can help improve communication between the rehabilitative facility and the neighborhood that has peacefully coexisted with it for well over a century.

If you've ever seen the big, walled complex extending from 48th to 50th near Haverford Avenue and Market Street, then you've seen Kirkbride. It's been around as long as, well, its namesake, Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a University of Pennsylvania-educated doctor who in 1840 became administrator of what was then called the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.

Judy Garland and, reportedly, Marilyn Monroe were treated behind Kirkbride's walls. You can almost imagine the troubled stars sitting under the shade of one of the massive oaks rooted in Kirkbride's 22 acres, their blackout sunglasses in place, their hair wrapped tightly in silk scarves, seeking sanity and a little peace.

No longer a mental-health spa for the rich, Kirkbride has morphed into a multiservice facility. It houses a homeless shelter and provides acute psychiatric services, treatment for chemical dependency for adults, and resident services for delinquent and dependent adolescent boys.

A former resident, Billy Langley, 19, has been charged with Moody's murder, accused of pummeling the groundskeeper with a brick on 48th Street, right outside Kirkbride's border - all for Moody's wallet.

A senseless act of violence that understandably sparked tension between Kirkbride and local residents.

Neighbors maintain they didn't know anything about a center for juvenile delinquents being on Kirkbride's campus.

Nor a homeless shelter. They say the only way they found out about that was when they looked up one day and happened to see a parade of mothers pushing strollers down the street.

"Everybody's two or three paychecks away from being homeless, so I have nothing against the shelter," says David Pride, 53, who has a view of Kirkbride's walls from his rowhouse on 49th Street, where he lives with his 81-year-old mother.

What really troubles him is the delinquent center. Langley reportedly knew his victim. But what if random violence decided to spill over into the neighborhood?

"Just let us know what's going on there," Pride says. If you're running a detention center, then we should be forewarned. . . . Shouldn't it be held to the same standard of accountability as a jail?"

A fair question that Scott Weisenberger, Kirkbride's executive director, had an answer for.

Weisenberger first wanted to make one thing clear: He understands the neighborhood's concern. Any time murder occurs in your own backyard, he says, it should spur questions.

But don't think he's a neutral observer here. After all, this was an in-house tragedy - one of Kirkbride's own allegedly killed at the hands of one of its own.

"I'm devastated," Weisenberger says. "You'd have to know Corey. . . . If you complained that it was Monday, he'd say, 'Only four more days until Friday!' He was always, always, always optimistic. In his heart, he had a good soul."

Weisenberger says he is legally prohibited from talking about Langley. He does offer that the 14 teens currently residing at Kirkbride were referred by the Youth Study Center, a detention facility, which will be moving right across the street from Kirkbride in a few years.

Still, he says, "we don't take kids with big problems, like fire-setters or sexually aggressive kids." His population consists of truants, lookouts for drug dealers, kids whose families are in disarray. Plus, residents are shadowed by security at all times, he says.

Weisenberger says Kirkbride conducted "meetings in the past" with the neighborhood, informing it about the shelter and the juvenile center.

"Nobody I know was at that meeting," Pride says.

"Obviously we have to do a better job of letting the neighbors in and letting them know what goes on around here," Weisenberger says.

Almost as an afterthought, he added: "Every patient who comes here, you always try to do the best for them. But you don't have a crystal ball. . . . We're always hopeful that what we do can set them on the right path."

A path that they hope doesn't lead back to Kirkbride.