Eastern State Penitentiary: A Journey Into Historic Lockdown

Have you ever found yourself unexpectedly captivated by a piece of history so profound, it resonates through time? That's exactly what happened to us aboard a double-decker bus, where the Eastern State Penitentiary's towering walls demanded our attention and inspired an episode that connects the past to our present lockdown experiences. We unravel the rich tales of the prison's origins and its once-cutting-edge design, including features like heated cells and 'eye of God' skylights. Discover the penitential intent behind its architecture and the stories that lie within, such as Al Capone's infamous luxury cell, showcasing the disparities in prisoner treatment.

As we wrap up, we not only reflect on the historical significance of such an architectural marvel, but also on the deeper connections forged during these unique times of confinement. Your stories and engagement breathe life into the Lockdown Legacy we're creating together. It's a profound shift in perspective, where our collective histories and personal journeys intertwine. So, join us for this weekly exploration where the walls speak, and we listen—building a legacy one episode at a time.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome to Lockdown to Legacy stories from the inside out. I'm your host, remy Jones.

Speaker 2: 0:25

And I am co-host Debbie Jones. We're a husband and wife team here to bring you the real life stories, experiences and questions around the American criminal justice system. We do advise discretion with this podcast. I think we should put that out there first and foremost. Yes, we are going to talk about experiences that happen inside the prison system, outside of prison systems. We will use language that might be offensive, but we intend to keep it real. And if that's not for you, we totally understand, but please do what's best for your listening ears.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Oh, we about to keep it real, son. Our goal of this podcast is to share the inside realities of the American prison and criminal justice system, from pre-charges all the way to post-release, from the voices of those who've experienced it firsthand, including me.

Speaker 2: 1:13

That's right, let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 1:30

What's up everybody, welcome back to another episode of Lockdown to Legacy. Of course I'm your host, remy Jones, the hostess with the mostess, just here to give you guys another interesting episode, to give you guys a little update, because you know that's how I like to start off every episode. I am in Philly right now, philadelphia, pa, so shout out to any listeners. We got there. Dj, of course, doing her school thing, had a conference here and I've been working so much lately, man, I kind of just felt like I should take a vacation and so I kind of tagged along, man. Man, philly is interesting. It's real like deep, for real. You know, I'm kind of into historic architecture.

Speaker 1: 2:23

So already on our second day here here, we did the big bus tour. You know, we're riding around a double decker and we're looking at all these buildings and, man, like it's, it's eye-opening for real. We did the same thing. We went to chicago. Um, it'll probably be a thing we go and do everywhere we go, but, uh, I mean so far, mean so far, it's dope, man.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Um, that bus ride actually influenced me to change the episode that I had already had planned for this week. So, um, on that bus ride we came across the Eastern state penitentiary and, um, like riding up to it. I mean, we were coming to get, coming up on the cross street and all of a sudden, there's just this huge wall. I mean like it's a like cobblestone or you know some. You see, on like a stone front house, it was like a huge wall, man, I'm talking about a hundred feet high or more. You couldn't see anything on the other side of it, um, nothing over the wall or anything. There were no holes. And that, right there, just instantly got my attention. And, um, the bus driver or, I'm sorry, the, the tour guide on the bus, um, started dropping all these jewels, man, and just started dropping all these factoids about it. And I was like I didn't even tell DJ, so she don't even know about this.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Uh, little switch up that I did here, uh, but in my mind I was like, yo, I first off, I gotta go see this, so I'm probably going to go see that tomorrow. And, um, I gotta like talk about this, cause, you know, just like we did in Belize, you know, we went to the local prison that they had there, um, and that case being the only prison they had in the whole country. But, um, you know, this one, here they actually do tours and stuff. So, uh, a little preemptive on the episode, doing it before the tour, you know, putting the cart before the horse. But you know, hey, I gotta give you guys an episode. So here it is the horse. But you know, hey, I gotta give you guys an episode. So here it is.

Speaker 1: 4:31

So in my uh little independent research that I've done um, mainly um using wikipedia articles, so I'll put those in the show notes. So I've discovered that, uh, this was once the most famous and expensive prison in the world. Like man, we got so much damn history in the US here that is not put into the history books, right? It's located in a Fairmont section of the city and, per our tour guide on the bus, mr Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was riding his horse up this fair hill. It was a pretty good-sized hill and he said, oh, what a fair mount this is, and so they called it the Fair Mount section of the city. Now, if that's not in fact true, don't hold it against me. That was the tour guide. Sorry to throw her under the bus, but it is located in the Fairmont section of the city and was operational from 1829 to 1971.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Originally it had a different name, though. It was originally called the Cherry Hill State Penitentiary, though it was originally called the cherry hill state penitentiary, and it was built on a 10 acre plot of farmland. And they had this huge like contest for it to be designed. And, um, let me tell you, man, these people were shrewd man, not necessarily in like you know the prison aspect of it, but just like the balls of these people to be offensive. So, um, the guy that won the contest his name was john havelin and you know he was a german, um, immigrant that had settled here in the US, in the Pennsylvania area and so the guy wins the design, right, he wins the contest. So they for some reason choose the second place you know the runner up in the contest to oversee the building of the prison.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Now, I don't know about y'all, I'm real competitive. So for me to come in second place and y'all to choose me to build somebody else's design, I would have been so offended, man, I'd have been mad, I probably would have sabotaged it. I can't even lie, man. That just seems like wow, why would you do that? That's a no-no. But anyway, it was like wow, why would you do that? That's a no-no. But anyway it revolutionized prisons for real At that point in time.

Speaker 1: 7:15

He used a design that was really unheard of at that time and they called it the hub-and-spoke design, which really most prisons use that design now, and the benefit of that design is that you could see further, you could keep an eye in every direction, so it was all about visibility. So in this case this prison has seven corridors of cell blocks, which you know in the joint we just call them cell blocks, and they were heated and they were. They had skylights, there was skylit quarters. So, like when this prison came out, that's probably why you know it was the most famous and most expensive, because when this prison came out and was completed it influenced so many other prisons, not just here in the United States but around the world. You know, when it was completed it wasn't just the most expensive prison but it was actually the most expensive public structure ever erected in the United States at that point and it ended up influencing over 300 prisons around the world.

Speaker 1: 8:31

So I don't know if you guys remember our episode about solitary confinement, but we had mentioned in there that the Quakers were some of the pioneers of solitary confinement and the Quakers were also, uh, present here in the Pennsylvania area. So this prison actually took in that solitary confinement aspect and was one of the first to actually revolutionize the prison industry by including solitary confinement within the design of it. Um, including solitary confinement within the design of it. They tried to first kind of test out the design on the Wall Street I'm sorry, the Walnut Street jail and they. The whole concept of that jail was actually that they emphasized principles of reform rather than punishment, criticized principles of reform rather than punishment. And, believe it or not, solitary confinement back then was considered a way to reform the prisoner instead of punishing them, which, as we know now is not the case and it does so much more harm than good.

Speaker 1: 9:41

So just a little recap the separate system, aka solitary confinement, was uh first introduced in the early 19th century and the objective was that, um, the person in question, or whatever, needed penance, you know, for their crimes or for their evil thoughts or whatever, and so that penance was expressed through silent reflection, and so they will put them into a cell or some type of isolated, secure environment with nothing but a Bible, and that was for them to digest the scripture, reflect upon it. It had to be silent, it had to be completely isolated, often dim, often dank, moist Just all the bad words you can think that would come to mind and they would be in there for weeks. In modern solitary confinement in prison, inmates could be in there for years. Actually they no longer do the whole Bible shtick but whatever. But you know some of the consequences of long-term solitary confinement, unfortunately were it broke the inmates down mentally. You know it caused a lot of mental health issues, including, you know, schizophrenia, multiple personality disorders, etc. Multiple personality disorders, et cetera. Um, and not to mention that, you know, once they came out of solitary confinement they really had withdrawn so much, you know, not having had that people interaction. You know we are social beings, we're social creatures and we need that interaction. So when they got back out here into, you know, into a hostile environment whether it was from other inmates or from the staff themselves they had a whole lot of trouble, you know, reacclimating to that and so it really caused problems.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Now I want to hold up for a second and go back to the design of this prison Because you know this Wikipedia article is like stupid interesting. You know, once again I told you this place was like revolutionary. It like really kind of trailblazed prison design for its time kind of trailblazed prison design for its time, and one of the interesting aspects of it was that it was heated and the sails had like accommodations that really weren't widely used in any type of building, let alone a prison. So, um, the cell structure actually included a faucet with running water and the running water was over the flushing toilet. So that was like I mean, it's still kind of used today. It's kind of a water fountain design that's um and like fused into the toilet. It's really weird. I don't know why they did that, but anyway, there was also curved pipes on the walls where they ran hot water through it to heat the sails in the wintertime.

Speaker 1: 13:19

But of all the features that really kind of blew my mind was the fact that the toilets flushed, and that in itself is not a big deal really. I mean, we can all imagine like, yeah, that's what toilets do, but in this case the toilets were flushed remotely, so the inmates had no control over when the toilets flushed. They were flushed only twice per week by the prison guards. So I mean, if you can imagine, you're in a cell and you have a cellmate and you guys got to pee, you guys got to poop, whatever, over a 14-day period. I mean, who knows how many times you go in there and use the bathroom, man, and in the summer it gets kind of hot, gets kind of. You know it had to be some thick air man choke you to death. That, right there alone, is the punishment, if you ask me. But you know, for the time, like I said, man, I'm sure people were kind of used to it and it was normal and hell, they might've even been grateful for it.

Speaker 1: 14:36

So another interesting thing about this design and this one is really kind of mind blowing for me is that originally the inmates were housed in cells that could only be accessed by entering through a small exercise yard attached to the back of the prison. As far as the cell blocks themselves, there was only like a small box, kind of like what you see in the movies, where it was a hole large enough to pass meals through the door. It was a hole large enough to pass meals through the door. The design proved impractical I mean, of course, no-transcript so it was actually like double door. That's crazy. Um, the doors were super small and so inmates had to really like kind of um hunch over or duck down to get inside, and kind of they were also narrow, and so one of the things that they said might have been a reason for this because it was by design was so that inmates would have a harder time getting out and it would minimize attacks on officers.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Some other people have theorized, though, that the small doors forced the prisoners to bow while entering their cells, which kind of tied in with that whole penance um ideology that they had. Um, it was also said that the skylight of each cell you know the cell construction was um concrete and it had a single glass skylight in each cell, and it had a single glass skylight in each cell, which they actually termed the eye of God, suggesting that the prisoners were always being watched. That is a little creepy to me. Um okay, I just I really can't imagine being in a time like this where you know everything is religious and you know, it's just like even doing time.

Speaker 1: 16:54

It's like you're being watched by God and you got to pay penance and all this other stuff. You know, I understand that that's a part of a lot of people's lives, the religion and everything but like solitary confinement with nothing but a bible is extreme to me, man, I really. But this is the stuff I find interesting. Like I would really like to kind of like go and find more information about how religion tied into punishment and different time and different eras. Another interesting factoid is that they actually started filling up the prison before it was finished, you know, before the construction was finished. So the original design was actually, you know, like I said, a seven spoke, you know, from a central hub, um, and they were supposed to be single story with two tiers on the cell blocks. But while they were still doing the construction, they ended up enlisting the services of inmates to finish the last two cell blocks, you know, cell blocks 14 and 15. And they said they were pretty hastily built. You know they were really trying to push that timeline to get it done. I'm pretty sure we all know what that's like. Being at this housing market is what it is right now and they're just throwing stuff up. But basically, um, cell block 15 was like so hastily built and really like, from the very beginning the conditions were kind of bad and so that's where they put the worst um inmates of all and they were like completely gated off from even the the guards, so that I mean that right, there is kind of nuts, but it's hard to imagine that you can build a prison of this size and it's mind-blowing, it's complex, it's everything, it's inspiring and have it completely filled and overcrowded before the structure is even complete. And I don't know if I told you guys already, but it was designed to house 250 inmates. Time of the prison they actually had over 85,000 people go through his stores and, um, you know, like I mentioned earlier, some of them were even famous people. So we had a Scarface Al Capone. He was probably their most notorious um inmate and according to our bus guide once again, and according to our bus guide once again, he had such great amenities Like his sale was nothing like everyone else's sale and that was due to the fact that he was actually friends with the warden. So I mean, when you talk about a guy who was, you know, mr, untouchable and ended up going to prison like if he had to do prison time, it better had been, you know, as comfortable as possible, which I find it really hard to imagine prison as comfortable, let alone in, you know, the 1800s and 1900s. But hey man, that's just me. I lived a pampered life, I guess, on the inside.

Speaker 1: 20:41

Also, according to easternstateorg, which is the Eastern State Penitentiary website, alphonse Capone aka was uh. He spent eight months in that prison and he was arrested for carrying a deadly concealed weapon. Of course, that was his first prison sentence. I'm not really sure if he had others, but all I know is that those eight months in the eastern state were relatively luxurious. His cell was on the Park Avenue block and he had, according to them, fine furniture, oriental rugs and a cabinet radio, which I'm pretty sure did not make the other inmates happy, but I'm sure he was a sharing type, at least for the music. Um, also, you know, there's always a contraband to be smoked in, as far as you know, um, liquor beer, whatever, and during this time, um, liquor beer, whatever, and during this time, um, we're talking about prohibition and everything. So who knows what type of good old time they were having in there.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Um, some other notable uh names from that area that were housed in eastern state is victor babe andrioli. Um, he was convicted for killing a pennsylvania state trooper in 1937 and served a life sentence for first degree murder. But you know, you know how it is right, young hard-headed, I mean, guys ain't going down without a fight. So he ended up escaping in 1943 by hiding in the delivery truck that was leaving the prison. Um, they actually caught up to him at a diner and, you know, they ended up having a shootout and he died. So, you know, sad but didn't serve a life sentence.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Uh, another figure was Morris Bulber, also known as the rabbi. Um, he was sentenced in 1942 and was serving a life sentence as a member of an arsenic murdering ring located in Philly. Um, he was called a veteran witch doctor and compounder of charms. Okay, bulber was one of the leaders of the group and they appealed to women who were willing to murder their husbands. Arsenic wasn't the only method used, but in order to collect their husbands' insurance policies, you know, and of course give them a cut. They were willing to organize it all as long as the women were willing to be a part of it. So between 1932 and 1937, the group was responsible for the deaths of at least 30 people least 30 people. 16 people were convicted for participating in the syndicate, including Bulbert and Horace Perlman, who also served time at Eastern State for the murders.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Let's see One of the ladies. So this was not a separate prison for genders, but one of the ladies that were held here was Frida Frost. The female prisoners were part of the landscape crew for the prison for almost 100 years and Frida was one of the last of them. She was transferred to the Muncie Industrial Home for Women in 1923, but she got famous just for being the last. I wouldn't say just for being the last, but that was one of the big things. She was there serving a 20-year sentence for murder and guess what she did? Poisoned her husband man. This was not a good era for husbands, by the way. I just want to say that man Looks like if you had any value. You were on the radar and the scope.

Speaker 1: 25:03

So the last famous inmate that I want to highlight here is William Francis Sutton. He was also known as Slick Willie, which I believe I've heard that name in pop culture before. He was one of the most famous bank robbers in American history. He spent 11 years at Eastern State Penitentiary Tentry. In 1945, him, along with 11 other prisoners, escaped from Eastern State in a prisoner-dug tunnel that went almost 100 feet underground. Sutton was recaptured just minutes later. Over the course of his criminal career, though, sutton is credited with over 50 bank robberies, three successful escapes from prison and over 30 years served behind bars. He died in 1980. I just got to say to get away with over 50 bank robberies like this dude. I mean, of course we're talking about the age where technology isn't what it is now.

Speaker 1: 26:05

There were no surveillance cameras and instant surveillance cameras and you know instant transmissions of, you know cell phones and pictures and all this other stuff. But I mean still like this dude had stones man, um, slick Willie man, that's something else. So today, uh, eastern state penitentiary is open to the public. Uh, it operates as a museum, a historic site, and is open year-round. They give out guided tours as well as self-guided audio tours, and, um, the interesting thing about the audio tours are they're mainly narrated by this one person, steve I can't remember my pronounce his last name, I think it's uh, bushimi um but it also includes audio from former guards, wardens and even prisoners, which I think that is awesome.

Speaker 1: 27:07

I can't wait to go and see this stuff myself. There's a scavenger hunt that they do for children, and I mean talk about wanting to work in a prison. Man, this is probably one of those prisons that you can work at and actually have a good time. They are hiring right now it's for um, grounds maintenance technicians and stuff like that. Um, they've done a lot of restoration and preservation of this prison and I mean, dude, I've seen some of the costs of it. It's insane. It's mostly funded through, uh, fundraisers and public works contributions stuff, stuff like that. But I suggest you guys, man, if you ever go to Philly, man, like, hit it up, like this is the type of stuff that blows my mind and I love being a part of.

Speaker 1: 28:03

So, with that folks, I'm going to go ahead and wrap this episode up. I want to thank you all for being part of this whole journey with me. You know this whole lockdown legacy podcast is. It means a lot to me and it means a lot All of my dedicated listeners. So for now, I'm going to go ahead and sign off and I'll see you guys next week. Peace.

Speaker 2: 28:49

Peace. Remy Jones. You can reach us with any feedback, questions, comments or share the love by emailing stories at lockdown2legacycom. You can reach out there too for a free sticker, and you can find us on Instagram and Twitter with the handle at lockdown2legacy, and on Facebook at the Lockdown to Legacy podcast. Thanks for listening, thank you.