A prison like no other
Preeti Verma Lal
Philadelphia. May, 1929. A man with an unlicensed .38 caliber revolver was arrested outside a movie theatre. He was not a local. He had stopped in Philadelphia on his way to Chicago, his hometown. The man with a red birthmark on the fold of his right elbow, an oblong scar on left jaw and left side neck, and a burn mark on the tip of his right index finger was sentenced to one year in prison. His name: Alphonse ‘Scarface’ Capone, the most notorious bootlegger of his time. His prison: Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP), Philadelphia. His room: A solitary cell in Park Avenue block with fine furniture, oriental rugs, beautiful paintings, and a cabinet radio. The hazel-eyed, black-haired bootlegger liked to listen to waltzes in his cell.
Once the world’s most expensive prison, ESP is in ruins now.
Al Capone was probably ESP’s most famous inmate but the penitentiary’s fame stemmed from its philosophy and, well, its electrical wires and plumbing. The philosophy, first. In 1787, Dr. Benjamin Rush founded the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, the first prison reform group in the world. In 1829, ESP was opened as part of a controversial movement to change the behaviour of inmates through ‘confinement in solitude with labour’. The stress was on ‘penitence’, hence ESP was called a penitentiary, not a prison.
Penitence reeks of austerity but this was not a damp and dingy building. Spread over 11 acres, nearly $780,000 was spent to construct ESP, wherein each prisoner had a private cell, centrally heated, with running water, a flush toilet, and a skylight. The prisoners had running water and central heating before the country’s Presidents. The White House was plumbed for running water much after ESP, one of the most expensive buildings of its day in the United States.
October 25, 1829. ESP got its first inmate. Charles Williams. Light black skin, five feet seven inches tall, and a farmer by trade. Theft included one $20 watch, one $3 gold seal, a gold key. Sentenced to two-year confinement with labour.
It has been 190 years since Williams first walked into ESP as prisoner No.1. The prison has withered with age and desolation. Capone’s fancy radio has fallen silent. The masks that were fabricated to keep the inmates from communicating during rare trips outside their cells have rusted. There is no chatter in the dining hall where table cloths were laid on Sundays and holidays. The ducking stool punishment has been abandoned. The outrage over penitence as a reform tool has grown vociferous. The plaster has chipped and the cells are deserted. The most expensive prison has fallen into absolute ruin.
But stories are oft-repeated. Of Samuel R. Wood, the first warden of ESP; the full-time schoolteacher who was hired in 1854; 10,000 tourists who visited ESP in 1858 on their horses; and Pep, a dog that was sent to prison for murdering Governor Gifford Pinchot’s cat. And, of course, of Leo Callahan, the only convict who managed to escape in 1923 and was never recaptured. Assault and Battery with Intent to Kill brought Callahan to ESP, and a makeshift wooden ladder helped him out. Callahan and five other inmates built a ladder that they used to scale the east wall of the penitentiary. All five were eventually recaptured, but Callahan was never found. If alive, Callahan would be more than 100 now.
Brad Pitt and Megan Fox have nudged out Pep in popularity. After closing as a penitentiary, ESP resurrected itself as a film and television location – Transformers 2 with Megan Fox; 12 Monkeys with Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis; Return to Paradise starring Vince Vaughn and CBS’s Cold Case.” Tina Turner shot a music video here, so did rapper Beanie Sigel. Do not get surprised if the tour guide shows a blotch on the floor marking it as the exact spot where Tina Turner lit fire for the video, and the few renovated wall patches because ESP “cannot let dirt fall on Brad Pitt”.
Eastern State Penitentiary operated for 142 consecutive years before closing at the dawn of the 70s and reopening as a tourist attraction in 1994. They say, ghosts lurk in the cells. One can never vouch for a ghost, but guillotine-sliced melons existed. ESP once had a functioning guillotine that was used to slice melons!
