PHILADELPHIA — Built as a punishing fortress in 1829, Eastern State Penitentiary sat a mile and a half outside Philadelphia, isolated behind 30-foot walls, a model of solitary confinement imitated around the world.
The prison remained in use for the next 142 years, even as Philadelphia grew around it. It closed in 1971; then the site was rescued in the 1980s and stabilized, preserved in a permanent state of decay. Today, the brick and stone of the vaulted ceilings are crumbling. Layers of paint are flaking off the walls, and floors are heaped with dirt and dust. Inside the cells, beds and tables are toppled, drawers ajar, frozen in time.
The building once attracted more visitors than Independence Hall, even as its practices drew critics including Charles Dickens, who called the prison a place of “torture and agony.”
[For more on this story by Shannon Eblen, go to https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...um-philadelphia.html]
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