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Sing Sing
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Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in the Village of Ossining, Town of Ossining, New York, United States. It is located approximately 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City on the banks of the Hudson River. Ossining's original name, "Sing Sing", was named after the Native American Sinck Sinck tribe from whom the land was purchased in 1685.
Sing Sing houses approximately 1,700 prisoners.
There are plans to convert the original 1825 cell block into a museum.
arch, 1796, legislation was passed requiring the building of two state prisons in New York, one in Albany and the other somewhere in southern New York.
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Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in the Village of Ossining, Town of Ossining, New York, United States. It is located approximately 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City on the banks of the Hudson River. Ossining's original name, "Sing Sing", was named after the Native American Sinck Sinck tribe from whom the land was purchased in 1685.
Sing Sing houses approximately 1,700 prisoners.
There are plans to convert the original 1825 cell block into a museum.
History
In March, 1796, legislation was passed requiring the building of two state prisons in New York, one in Albany and the other somewhere in southern New York. In addition to the plan for the construction of the two prisons, there was to be appointed a "Board of inspectors," whose job was to "statedly visit the prisons, purchase clothing, bedding, raw materials for manufacturing purposes and to keep an account of the earnings and expenses of each prison" ; the law also provided that the state governor and Council were to appoint a "Keeper, who was to be of some mechanical profession." No prison was, in fact, built in Albany, but one was constructed in Auburn, beginning in April, 1815 and opening a year later.
In 1825, the New York Legislature gave Elam Lynds the task of constructing a new, more modern prison. Lynds was the warden of Auburn Prison and a former Army captain. He spent months researching possible locations for the prison, considering Staten Island, The Bronx, and Silver Mine Farm, an area in the town of Mount Pleasant, located on the banks of the Hudson River.
He also visited New Hampshire, where a prison was successfully constructed by inmate labor, using stone that was available on site. For this reason, by May, Lynds had finally decided on Mount Pleasant, located near a small village in Westchester County with the unlikely name of Sing Sing. This appellation was derived from the Indian words, "Sint Sinck" which translates to "stone upon stone". The legislature appropriated $20,100 to purchase the site, and the project received the official stamp of approval. Lynds hand-selected 100 inmates from his own private stock for transfer and had them transported by barge along the Erie Canal to freighters down the Hudson River. On their arrival on May 14, the site was "without a place to receive them or a wall to enclose them"; "temporary barracks, a cook house, carpenter and blacksmith’s shops" were rushed to completion.
Lynds' plan was to use prisoner labor to excavate marble from a nearby quarry and use it to construct the prison, a practice Lynds had seen used in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Once the prison was built, the prisoners would continue excavating marble to be shipped down the Hudson River to New York City. Beyond the initial sum required to purchase the land, the prison was to be self-supporting, not requiring taxpayer funding. Some of the marble went into the construction of New York University, the United States Treasury building, New York City's Grace Church, and the New York State Capitol building in Albany.
When it was completed, Sing Sing was considered a model prison, because it turned a profit for the state. Lynds employed the Auburn system, which imposed absolute silence on the prisoners; the system was enforced by whipping and other brutal punishments. Visitors found the silence of the up-to 900 prisoners, even as they worked. After Lynds left in the wake of a scandal involving the pregnancy of a female prisoner , conditions at the prison began to deteriorate. Fires and disease became common, and in 1861, the governor called in the army to quell a riot.
Another notable warden, besides Lynds, was Lewis Lawes. He was offered the position of warden, a position which had been filled by nine separate people in the previous nine years, one for only three weeks;and accepted in 1920. What he found was a facility that had lost any semblance of order through decades of neglect and abuse. Records documented 795 male and 102 female prisoners at Sing Sing. A head count turned up only 762 and 82 actually present. "How these missing prisoners had left the prison or when, could not be ascertained," he said. Worse still, for one prisoner who had been incarcerated for five years, there was no record of admission or retention history. He was declared a "volunteer," and released on the spot. Also, more than $30,000 in cash was missing from prison bank accounts, and there was no trace as to where the money went. Documented punishments were brutal, and described a long history of abuse by both prison guards and wardens.
Sing Sing has its own cemetery; among those buried there is serial killer Albert Fish.
Notable prisoners
- Albert Fish, a serial killer and cannibal (executed in 1936 and buried in the prison cemetery).
- Carl Panzram, serial killer, 1923.
- Charles Becker, the first American policeman executed for murder.
- Charles Chapin, "The Rose Man", a former New York City newspaper editor served a life sentence for murder.
- Eddie Mays, last prisoner executed by the State of New York in the electric chair in 1963 prior to abolishing capital punishment.
- Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, convicted of being spies for the Soviet Union.
- Frank Abbandando, former member of Murder, Inc.
- Gary McGivern, recipient of controversial clemency in 1985.
- George C. Parker, con artist who sold the Brooklyn Bridge.
- James Larkin, Irish labor leader imprisoned from 1920 to 1923 for 'criminal anarchy' as a result of his left wing writings.
- Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the head of Murder, Inc. was executed there.
- Louis Capone, former member of Murder, Inc.; no relation to Al Capone.
- Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, electrocuted there after being found guilty for the murders of twelve people.
- Miguel Piñero, playwright; sentenced to 25 years for armed robbery.
- Richard Whitney, former president of the New York Stock Exchange.
- Ruth Snyder, convicted of killing her husband for insurance money.
- Piri Thomas, writer of Down These Mean Streets.
- Charles "Lucky" Luciano, considered the father of organized crime.
- William H. Van Schaick, captain of the General Slocum, responsible for the worst maritime accident in New York's history.
- William Tager, infamous for attacking Dan Rather in New York and shouting "Kenneth, what is the frequency?", subsequently convicted and sentenced to 25 years for shooting a Today Show stagehand.
- Willie Sutton, bank robber.
- Benjamin Gitlow, communist convicted of criminal anarchy
Contribution to English vernacular
- "Doing the sit-down dance", meaning execution in the electric chair, originated at Sing Sing.
- The expression "up the river" for prison originally referred to those convicted in New York City being sent up the Hudson river to Sing Sing.
Further reading
- The Repression of Crime, Studies in Historical Penology by Harry Elmer Barnes. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith.
- Fifty Years of Prison Service by Zebulon Reed Brockway. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith.
- The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism by James McGrath Morris (2003)
- Crash Out: The True Tale of a Hell's Kitchen Kid and the Bloodiest Escape in Sing Sing History by David Goewey (2005)
- Miracle at Sing Sing: How One Man Transformed the Lives of America's Most Dangerous Prisoners by Ralph Blumenthal (2005)
- Sing Sing: The Inside Story of a Notorious Prison by Denis Brian (2005)
- Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House by Scott Christianson (2000)
- Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover (2000), ISBN 0-375-50177-0
- A Good Conviction a novel by Lewis M. Weinstein (2007), ISBN 1595941622
- 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way To Freedom by Anthony Papa (2004), ISBN 1932595066
- Lawes, Lewis E.. 20,00 Years in Sing Sing. 1st. New York: Ray Long & Richard H. Smith, Inc., 1932.
- Sing Sing State Prison, One Day, One Lifetime, by Al Bermudez Pereira (2006), ISBN 978-0805972900.
- Death Row Women by Mark Gado (2008) ISBN 978-0-275-99361-0
External links
- from The Crime Library
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- Half Moon Press, May 2000 issue
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