#the tombs

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“Must be nice… to know who you are.”

[decoarchitecture]

New York County Criminal Court (aka The Tombs, aka Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, aka Manhattan House of Detention), NYC, New York Source: MIT Dome

Originally built 1938-1941, this rather massive building was altered in the mid-80s with the addition of new wing, making it the Manhattan Detention Complex. I’m not sure I’ve ever posted a prison to this blog.

From Wikipedia’s entry on The Tombs:

Manhattan House of Detention, 1941–1974

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[ Art Deco architecture facility was designed by architects Harvey Wiley Corbett and Charles B. Meyers.

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" 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. 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. 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.

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.

Manhattan Detention Complex, 1983/1990–present

Today, the Manhattan Detention Complex consists 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 still houses only male inmates, most of them pretrial detainees. The total capacity of the two buildings is nearly 900 people.

The current Tombs jail was named The Bernard B. Kerik Complex in December 2001 at the direction of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Kerik was a well-regarded corrections commissioner from 1998–2000 before becoming police commissioner. Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered his name to be removed  after he admitted to two misdemeanor ethics violations in 2006, dating from his tenure as a city employee.

[sarcasmcloud]

From victim to killing machine - Preacher s03e03

[awesomejustgotawesome]

Preacher - S03E04 - The Tombs

Get it? Got it? Good.

[tulipscassidy]

Q: In Episode 4, Tulip refuses to run away with Cassidy and she says she doesn’t love him. How devastating is that for him?

Joe Gilgun: That was one of my favorite scenes to shoot. That was a really honest and beautifully written scene. When scenes are written in that way, the truth of it is on paper, it’s hard to f–k a scene like that up. That moment there, I mean she has to do it for him. She doesn’t want to. It’s heartbreaking, telling someone you don’t want them like that. I’ve certainly been in that position where I’ve been told someone doesn’t want me, and f–k it hurts, man. It’s happened a few times and it doesn’t get easier, that feeling. I can’t imagine that in a 119 years that that f–king thing wore off any more than it has in 34 years, for me. If anything, it feels like it kind of gets a bit worse, not being wanted, not being needed in this world. God, that f–king feels so lonely. For Cassidy, he’s looking for that all the time. You know, he needs that, and he’s not gonna get it with Tulip. He’s just not. It’s a long, hard road for him and I’m hoping he’ll get there in the end.

Q: He could have used the love potion on Tulip. Why do you think he chose not to?

A: Because it’s not the right thing to do. It’s just not. He’s completely in love with her, and when you are, you know that f–king cliche, “If you love her, let her go” — he’s trying to do that, he’s trying to just let it go. And in that moment, as much as he wants to, he just knows it isn’t right. Ultimately, Cas does have his moments where he thinks, “F–k it” and he’ll push his son through a window. He does have his moments where he can have a schizophrenic snap. I really believe that there’s something probably deeply wrong with Cassidy that needs addressing. But he also is very kind and tries to do the right thing, as best he can.

[x]

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Rebellion Hits 4th City Jail - 3 Injured; Hostages Total 24,” New York Sunday News. October 4, 1970. --- Their Fate In Prisoner’s Hands. --- A Wildfire of Anger from Jail to Jail --- Our Reporter Takes a Long Walk in a Dark Place --- Get a Behind-Bars Hearing. [AL: I’m not going to transcribe all of these articles about the prisoner revolt in New York in 1970, but read more with these excerpts (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.) from Toussaint Losier’s article “Against ‘law and order’ lockup: the 1970 NYC jail rebellions,” Race & Class, 2017, Vol. 59 (1).]  

[borings-the-worst]

photos by alfonso bresciani