The General Problem
The general problem was as follows:
Westchester County had purchased at East View, at a very reasonable price, a fine estate of some four hundred acres of exceptionally tillable land. On this property it was proposed to build a Poor House for about 700 and a penitentiary and workhouse for about 350, all short-term prisoners, the maximum sentence being thirteen months. Most of the men were to be employed on the farm, but in an institution of this size there are always men who will do better in shops so that the two kinds of work ought to be available. The plan was to build the institution by contract and the shops by prison labor.
The general scheme is set forth clearly in the plan, and it may be said that at the very beginning it was determined the men should be housed in smaller units than was usual. There are four cell blocks of three tiers each, all with outside cells, there being 27 men on a floor and 81 to a cell block. The connecting corridor 16 feet wide runs approximately east and west, and to this are joined the four cell blocks on the south, and on the north the reception building, the refectory, and school building. Between the two central cell blocks is placed the administration building, connected to them by an open passage.
The administration building has on the ground floor the warden’s office on one side of the hall, and the clerical office on the other, and in the rear, a long corridor which has been called the “guards’ corridor” but which will be used largely for the intercourse between the prisoners and the public. On the second floor of the administration building are quarters for a hospital and some rooms for the officers. It will be noted that the officers’ rooms on the second floor and the guards’ rooms on the third floor are accessible from the public space, but the hospital is accessible only from the prison side. In other words, the hospital is in the fortified portion and the guards’ quarters in the unfortified. The main stairway goes up to the third floor of the administration building, devoted entirely to guards’ rooms, and these were made large enough so that two guards could occupy one room, and while this is not generally advisable it was a wise forethought because some of the rooms have already been used in this way.