The style of this prison was decided on soon after the publication of a new book of travels by John L. Stevens, of Hoboken. Mr. Stevens had just returned from a visit to Egypt and the Holy Land and had given to the public the result of his impressions abroad in a handsome volume. As the author was well known in New York, his book became widely popular. On the front page was a picture of an Egyptian Tomb. Some suggested that the new city prison be built after this design. The Common Council accepted the suggestion. Ever since the city prison has been called “The Tombs.”
Strange to say, this new prison was erected in the midst of a neighborhood that has ever since run riot in every form of crime and wickedness. For over sixty years some of the blackest and bloodiest murders, robberies, assaults, hold-ups and other deeds of darkness were committed in this neighborhood or within a stone’s throw of the prison.
In early days that part of the old Tombs building fronting Centre Street was known as the Halls of Justice, as it contained the Court of Special Sessions and the First District Police Court. For several years after the Tombs was opened the Sheriff of the County had charge of the building and all of the prisoners from the time of their committal till they were safely landed in the Penitentiary or State Prison.
The old Tombs Prison was an oblong building 142x48 and contained four tiers, having one hundred and forty-eight double cells. As far as safety and economy were concerned, it was one of the best in the country. It was so constructed that one man on the fourth tier and one man at the desk could see everything going on in the building.
Forty years ago there was a stone building at the corner of Franklin and Centre Streets which for years was known as “Bummers’ Hall.” It was used principally for drunk, disorderly and crazy people. After a time it became dilapidated, filthy and overrun with rats. A young tough named Mahoney and some boys who were detained with him for some minor offence, made their escape from “Bummers’ Hall” through a window. After it was demolished, a brick building was erected known as the New Prison, which is now called the Annex. When the Tombs was first built it contained a cupola over the main entrance, which was burned on the day set for the execution of John C. Colt, November 18th, 1842. The original Tombs Prison was opened for business in the early part of 1838.
Retrospect
If the stones and iron grating of this dismal old prison, now no more, which for two-thirds of a century stood with its back toward Elm Street, and its front entrance facing Centre Street, could only speak out its experience and tell its woes, what a heart-rending story of crime it would tell; what bitterness of soul, dashed prospects, guilty consciences that presage horrors, together with the breath of a fetid atmosphere, where like hades, the smoke of their torment rises continually! It would also be a story of blood and tears!
For over sixty-five years the “old Tombs” prison has been the scene of so many tragedies and the grave of innumerable buried hopes, once most promising, but long since crushed under the iron heel of fate! And these realms of darkness, cold, damp and forbidding cells, clammy and foul with the sweat and tears of a past generation, remind us of the cruel dungeons underneath the Mamertine prison of the Caesars!
When we think of the number of cold-blooded murderers, the burglars, highwaymen, forgers, swindlers, gold-brick men, green-goods operators and hundreds of others possessing dark criminal records, that have lain here for many months, coming from every State and part of the globe, our blood curdles within.
What hideous characters have domiciled in this prison during these two generations, who afterwards paid the penalty of the law for their bloody deeds! Think also of the conglomeration of forces that actuated and bore them into their doom like driftwood going over a Niagara as merciless as fate would have them!