The Tombs

Original Tombs building, 1896.

"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails. The nickname has been used for several jails of southern Manhattan.

A mausoleum for the living

November 8, 1907. "Bridge of Sighs," connecting the 1902 Tombs prison at left with the 1894 Manhattan Criminal Courts building at right

First Tombs building, 1870

The first complex to have the nickname was built during 1838, and was designed by John Haviland. The design was based on an engraving of an ancient Egyptian mausoleum. The building initially accommodated about 300 prisoners. It occupied a full block, surrounded by Centre, Franklin, Elm (today's Lafayette), and Leonard Streets.

The block on which the building stood had been created during 1811 by the filling-in of the Collect Pond, a small lake that had once been an important fresh water source for colonial New York City. Industrialization and population density by the late 18th century resulted in the severe pollution of the Collect and it was condemned, drained and filled in. The landfill job was poorly done and in a span of less than ten years the ground began to subside.

The resulting swampy, foul-smelling conditions had already resulted in the quik transformation of the neighborhood into a slum known as Five Points by the time construction of the prison started during 1838. The enormous, heavy masonry of Haviland's building was built atop vertical "piles" of gigantic 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 bad reputation as being umsanitary during the decades to come.

As it also housed the city's courts, police, and detention facilities, The Tombs' more formal title was The New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention. Some regarded it as a notable example of Egyptian Revival architecture in the U.S., but opinion varied greatly concerning its actual merit. "What is this dismal fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter's palace in a melodrama?", asked Charles Dickens in his American Notes of 1842.

The prison was well known for its corruption and was involved with numerous scandals and successful prison escapes during its early history and, by 1850, many people were endorsing its destruction.

By the early 20th century, reforms began to be made as the first prison school for younger inmates in an American adult correction facility was established by the Public Schools Association during 1900.

The original building was replaced during 1902 with a new one connected by a "Bridge of Sighs" to the Criminal Courts Building on the Franklin Street side. That building was replaced during 1941 by one at 125 White Street, officially named the Manhattan House of Detention, though still referred to popularly as "The Tombs".

Part of "the Tombs" was eventually closed during 1974 for security and health reasons. Soon thereafter, the structure was demolished and replaced with another building. The current jail comprises two buildings connected by a pedestrian bridge—- a 381 bed tower that is the remaining part of the 1941 building at 100 Centre Street (completely remodeled during 1983), and a 500-bed tower north of it, opened during 1990.

The current "Tombs" jail was named The Bernard B. Kerik Complex during December 2001 at the direction of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; Kerik had been a well-regarded corrections commissioner from 1998-2000 before becoming police commissioner. After Kerik's 2006 plea bargain admitting to two misdemeanor ethics violations dating from his tenure as a city employee, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered his name omitted.

In summary:

• Tombs I, 1838–1902, New York City Halls of Justice and House of Detention, building by John Haviland
• Tombs II, 1902–1941, Manhattan House of Detention
• Tombs III, 1941–1974, Manhattan House of Detention
• Tombs IV, 1974–present, Manhattan Detention Complex (Bernard B. Kerik Complex 2001-2006)

In popular culture

Second Tombs building, November 1907

• The Tombs is the setting of the play Short Eyes by Miguel Piñero and its film adaptation.
• The Tombs is the setting for the endings of two works by Herman Melville: Pierre: or, The Ambiguities and Bartleby the Scrivener. Bartleby, apparently by willful starvation, dies on the grassy ground of an open yard in the prison, prompting his former employer to famously exclaim, "Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!".
• William Burroughs refers to The Tombs in his semi-autobiographical book Junkie.
• The Tombs provides the setting of the 1937 pulp fiction story "Dictator of the Damned," in which The Spider stages a daring raid to help exonerate an innocent man.
• In the TV sitcom Barney Miller, the officers frequently mention that they will take an arrestee to The Tombs.
• Jim Carroll mentions in his song "People Who Died" that his friend Bobby committed suicide by hanging in the Tombs.
• TV dramas Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU regularly make references to The Tombs.
• In his autobiographical novel Memos from Purgatory, Harlan Ellison describes his brief incarceration in The Tombs following his arrest for possession of a firearm that he had used as a prop while lecturing.
• 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.
• Eric Carter, the main character of Richard Price's novel Lush Life, is incarcerated in the Tombs.
• Towards the end of the movie American Gangster, Denzel Washington's character, Frank Lucas, is seen leaving prison after a 15-year sentence. This scene was filmed at the Tombs, although in real life prisoners are held there for relatively brief stays (arraignments, trials, etc.).
• The Tombs are referenced in the 2000 remake of Shaft, featuring Samuel L. Jackson.
• In the Wild Cards book series, Jay Ackroyd often uses his wild card power to teleport his enemies to the Tombs.

Further reading

• deFord, Miriam Allen (1962). Stone Walls: Prisons from Fetters to Furloughs. Philadelphia: Chilton. OCLC 378834.
• Johnson, James A. (2000). Forms of Constraint: A History of Prison Architecture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252025570. OCLC 42434965.
• Sifakis, Carl (2003). The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 9780816045112. OCLC 49225908.

References

• Gilfoyle, Timothy J. (2003). ""America's Greatest Criminal Barracks": The Tombs and the Experience of Criminal Justice in New York City, 1838-1897". Journal of Urban History. 29 (5): 525–554. doi:10.1177/0096144203029005002. OCLC 88513081.
• Roth, Mitchel P. (2006). Prisons and Prison Systems: A Global Encyclopedia. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313328565. OCLC 60835344.

External links

• Berger, Meyer (1983) [1942]. "The Tombs". The Eight Million: Journal of a New York Correspondent (Columbia University Press Morningside ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 23–35. ISBN 9780231057103. OCLC 9066227. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• New York Correction History Society timeline (includes photo)
• An early engraving by John Poppel.
• John DePol etching of a later building, 1942
• Painting of 1842 fire at The Tombs.
• "Irish in New York" site, Census of prisoners in 1860
• --News story.