Location | New York City |
---|---|
Status | Active |
Security class | Municipal Jail |
Opened | 1838 (original building) |
Former name | Halls of Justice, Manhattan House of Detention |
Managed by | New York City Department of Corrections |
Director | Commissioner Joseph Ponte |
The Tombs was the colloquial name for Manhattan Detention Complex [1] (formerly the Bernard B. Kerik Complex [2] ), a former municipal jail at 125 White Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It was also the nickname for three previous city-run jails in the former Five Points neighborhood of lower Manhattan, in an area now known as the Civic Center.
The original Tombs was officially known as the Halls of Justice, built in 1838 in an Egyptian Revival architectural style, similar in form to a mastaba. [1] It may have been this style that caused it to be called "the Tombs", although other theories exist. It was built as a replacement for the Colonial-era Bridewell Prison located in City Hall Park, built in 1735. The new structure incorporated material from the demolished Bridewell to save money. [3]
The four buildings known as The Tombs were:
The first complex to have the nickname was an Egyptian Revival design by John Haviland completed in 1838. There was a rumor at the time that the building was inspired by a picture of an Egyptian tomb that appeared in John Lloyd Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Egypt, although this appears to be untrue. [4] [5] The building was 253 feet, 3 inches in length and 200 feet, 5 inches wide, and it occupied a full block, surrounded by Centre Street, Franklin Street, Elm Street (today's Lafayette), and Leonard Street. It initially accommodated about 300 prisoners, and $250,000 was allocated in 1835 to build it, but various cost overruns occurred prior to completion of the project.
The building site had been created by filling in the Collect Pond that was the principal water source for Colonial New York City. Industrialization and population density by the late 18th century resulted in the severe pollution of the Collect, so it was condemned, drained, and filled in by 1817. The landfill job was poorly done, however, and the ground began to subside in less than 10 years. The resulting swampy, foul-smelling conditions transformed the neighborhood into a slum known as Five Points by the time that prison construction started in 1838. The heavy masonry of Haviland's design was built atop vertical piles of lashed hemlock tree trunks in a bid for stability, but the entire structure began to sink soon after it was opened. This damp foundation was primarily responsible for its unsanitary conditions in the decades that followed. Charles Dickens wrote about the jail in American Notes : "Such indecent and disgusting dungeons as these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in the world!" [6]
The Tombs' formal title was The New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention, as it housed the city's courts, police, and detention facilities. It was a notable example of Egyptian Revival architecture, although opinion varied greatly concerning its actual merit. As Dickens wrote: "What is this dismal fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter's palace in a melodrama?"
The prison was well known for its corruption and was the scene of numerous scandals and escapes during its early history. A fire destroyed part of the building on November 18, 1842, the same day that a notorious killer named John C. Colt was due to be hanged. Apparently it was an escape attempt on Colt's part that failed, and he fatally stabbed himself in his cell. [7] Convicted murderer and New York City politician William J. Sharkey earned national notoriety for escaping from the prison disguised as a woman on November 22, 1872. He was never captured and his fate is unknown. [8]
Rebecca Salome Foster, a prison relief worker and missionary, became known as "the Tombs Angel" for her efforts to help and advocate on behalf of the many poor people held in squalid conditions at the Tombs. A monument to her, built in 1902 and put in storage in 1940, was rededicated in 2019 in the New York State Supreme Court's lobby. [6]
In 1902, the 1838 building was replaced by a million-dollar City Prison featuring an eight-story Châteauesque facade with conical towers along Centre Street, bounded by Centre Street, White Street, Elm Street (today's Lafayette), and Leonard Street. [9]
The architects were Frederick Clarke Withers and Walter Dickson from Albany, who had been partners since the 1880s. This was their final major commission. In September 1900, the architects complained that construction would be delayed for a year and cost an additional $250,000 due to the unnecessary insertion of corrupt Tammany Hall architects Horgan and Slattery into the project. [10]
The building was connected to the 1892 Manhattan Criminal Courts Building with a "Bridge of Sighs", crossing four stories above Franklin Street. There was also an Annex with another 144 cells that was finished in 1884.
The 1902 prison was replaced in 1941 by a high-rise facility across the street on the east side of Centre Street. The 795,000 square foot [11] Art Deco architecture facility was designed by architects Harvey Wiley Corbett and Charles B. Meyers. [12] [13]
The facility is the northernmost of the four 15-story towers of the New York City Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street, bounded by Centre Street, White Street, Baxter Street, and Hogan Place. The three southern towers are wings of a single integrated structure sharing a five-story "crown" [14] which house the city's Criminal and Supreme Courts, city offices, and various departments, including the headquarters of the Department of Corrections. The northern tower is freestanding, with the separate address of 125 White Street. It was officially named the Manhattan House of Detention for Men (MHD), although it was still referred to popularly as The Tombs.
By 1969, the Tombs ranked as the worst of the city's jails, both in overall conditions and in overcrowding. It held an average of 2,000 inmates in spaces designed for 925. [15] Inmates rioted on August 10, 1970, after multiple warnings about falling budgets, aging facilities, and rising populations, and after an informational picket of City Hall by union correctional officers drawing attention to the pressures. Rioters took command of the entire ninth floor, and five officers were held hostage for eight hours, until state officials agreed to hear prisoner grievances and take no punitive action against the rioters. [16] Despite that promise, Mayor John Lindsay had the primary troublemakers shipped upstate to the state's Attica Correctional Facility which likely contributed to the Attica Prison riot about a year later. [17]
Within a month after the riot, the New York City Legal Aid Society filed a landmark class action suit on behalf of pre-trial detainees held in the Tombs. The city decided to close the Tombs on December 20, 1974, after years of litigation and after federal judge Morris E. Lasker agreed that the prison's conditions were so bad as to be unconstitutional. They shipped the remaining 400 inmates to Rikers Island, where conditions were not much better. [18]
The Manhattan Detention Complex consisted of a South Tower, the former Manhattan House of Detention remodeled and reopened in 1983, and a North Tower across White Street, completed in 1990. The complex housed only male inmates, most of them pretrial detainees. The total capacity of the two buildings was nearly 900 people. [20]
The jail was named The Bernard B. Kerik Complex in December 2001 at the direction of New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani. [2] Kerik was commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections from 1998 to 2000 [21] [1] before becoming police commissioner. [21] New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered Kerik's name removed after he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in 2006, committed during his tenure as a city employee. [1]
In 2019, the New York City Council announced plans to build four new jails citywide to replace Rikers Island, including a high-rise jail tower on the site of the Tombs. [22] The New York Daily News reported that the city planned to close the complex prior to the end of November 2020. [23] The demolition of the Tombs attracted criticism from landlords, local residents, and prison-reform advocates. [22] [24] Opponents claimed the redevelopment would harm local residents and businesses. [22] An injunction preventing the jail tower's construction was issued by the New York Supreme Court in 2020 but was overturned the next year. [25] Two artists also filed a lawsuit to preserve artwork that was displayed on the Tombs' facade, but U.S. district judge Lewis A. Kaplan declined to grant an injunction, [26] and seven murals were subsequently removed. [27] The demolition of the Tombs was finally approved in April 2023 [28] [29] but was paused after further objections. [30] Demolition continued despite objection by local residents. [31]
In November 2000, 16 people associated with the Opie and Anthony radio show were arrested and held in The Tombs overnight during a promotion for "The Voyeur Bus", a mostly glass bus carting topless women through Manhattan with a police escort. [32]
Five Points was a 19th-century neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The neighborhood, partly built on low-lying land which had filled in the freshwater lake known as the Collect Pond, was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street to the west, the Bowery to the east, Canal Street to the north, and Park Row to the south. The Five Points gained international notoriety as a densely populated, disease-ridden, crime-infested slum which existed for over 70 years.
Bernard Bailey Kerik is an American consultant and former police officer who was the 40th Commissioner of the New York Police Department from 2000 to 2001. As a convicted felon, he obtained a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump in 2020 for his numerous federal convictions for tax fraud, ethics violations, and criminal false statements.
Collect Pond, or Fresh Water Pond, was a body of fresh water in what is now Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, New York City. For the first two centuries of European settlement in Manhattan, it was the main New York City water supply system for the growing city. A jail was later built on the former pond. In the 20th century, the site became Collect Pond Park, which includes a reflecting pool to acknowledge the historic importance of this body of water.
Rikers Island is a 413-acre (167.14-hectare) prison island in the East River in the Bronx that contains New York City's largest jail.
The New York City Department of Correction (NYCDOC) is the branch of the municipal government of New York City responsible for the custody, control, and care of New York City's imprisoned population, housing the majority of them on Rikers Island. It employs 8,949 uniformed officers and 2,027 civilian staff, has 543 vehicles, and processes over 100,000 new inmates every year, retaining a population of inmates of between 3,000 and 6,000. Its nickname is New York's Boldest. Its regulations are compiled in title 39 of the New York City Rules.
The Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center was an 800-bed jail barge used to hold inmates for the New York City Department of Corrections. The barge was anchored off the Bronx's southern shore, across from Rikers Island, near Hunts Point. It was built for $161 million at Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana, along the Mississippi River near New Orleans, and brought to New York in 1992 to reduce overcrowding in the island's land-bound buildings for a lower price. Nicknamed "The Boat" by prison staff and inmates, it was designed to handle inmates from medium- to maximum-security in 16 dormitories and 100 cells.
The Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York is a temporarily closed United States federal administrative detention facility in the Civic Center of Lower Manhattan, New York City, located on Park Row behind the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse at Foley Square. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.
The Cook County Jail, located on 96 acres in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. It is sometimes referred to as California or Hotel California, as its address is on California Street. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, but major County prisoners were not generally collocated here until closure of the old Hubbard Street Criminal Court Building and jail in 1929. Since then, a 1920s neoclassical and art deco courthouse for the criminal division of the Cook County Circuit Court has operated at the South Lawndale complex.
The Women's Prison Association (WPA), founded 1845, is the oldest advocacy group for women in the United States. The organization has historically focused on New York City and New York State issues. Since 2004 it has developed the Institute on Women & Criminal Justice, to focus a national conversation on women and criminal justice.
The District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DCDC) is a correctional agency responsible for the adult jails and other adult correctional institutions for the District of Columbia, in the United States. DCDC runs the D.C. Jail.
Cecily McMillan is an American activist and advocate for prisoner rights in the United States who was arrested and subsequently convicted of felony second-degree assault. McMillan claimed she was defending herself against an attempted sexual assault by a New York City Police officer as he led her out of the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park on March 17, 2012. McMillan's highly publicized arrest and trial led to her being called a "cause célèbre of the Occupy Wall Street movement". McMillan said that her breast was grabbed and twisted by someone behind her, to which she says she responded to by reflexively elbowing her perceived attacker in the face. The officer involved, Grantley Bovell, testified that she deliberately assaulted him; a video showed McMillan "bending her knees, then throwing her right elbow into the officer's eye". She was arrested after a brief attempt to flee, and says she was beaten by police during her arrest. McMillan was convicted of felony second-degree assault on May 5, 2014, and was subsequently sentenced to three months in prison and five years of probation.
The Nine Trey Gangster Bloods or Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods (NTG) are a violent set of the United Blood Nation street gang, which is itself a set of the Bloods gang. The gang operates on the East Coast of the United States.
Kalief Browder was an African American youth from The Bronx, New York, who was held at the Rikers Island jail complex, without trial, between 2010 and 2013 for allegedly stealing a backpack containing valuables. During his imprisonment, Browder was kept in solitary confinement for 800 days.
The Brooklyn Detention Complex is a jail facility located at 275 Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn. It can hold up to 815 male prisoners in its single cells. Most of the population is made up of detainees undergoing the intake process or awaiting trial in Kings or Richmond County.
The government of Harris County, Texas maintains its main jail complex in Downtown Houston, Texas. The complex, operated by the Harris County Sheriff's Office (HCSO), lies in the peninsula formed by the Buffalo Bayou in northern Downtown. While most of the complex is based on county jails serving Harris County, Joe Kegans State Jail is also located within the complex. The Harris County District Court is located just next to the jail complex.
The Bridewell was a municipal prison built in 1768 on the site now occupied by City Hall Park in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
Anna Moscowitz Kross was a Russian-American lawyer, judge, and public official. She was New York City Commissioner of Correction from 1953 to 1966.
Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco was a 27-year-old Afro-Latina transgender woman who died at Rikers Island, New York City's main jail complex, on June 7, 2019, in solitary confinement after staff failed to provide her with medical care that could have saved her life for 47 minutes following an epileptic seizure. After a six-month investigation, the New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark claimed that staff members were not responsible for Polanco's death. Records indicate that officers had extensive knowledge of Polanco's epilepsy, she having already suffered multiple seizures at Rikers.
George F. McGrath was a United States police commissioner.
Manhattan Detention Complex – capacity: 898. This lower Manhattan command consists of two buildings designated the North and South Towers, connected by a bridge. The North Tower was opened in 1990. The South Tower, formerly the Manhattan House of Detention, or the "Tombs," was opened in 1983, after a complete remodeling. The complex houses male detainees, most of them undergoing the intake process or facing trial in New York County (Manhattan).
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