Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA
I don’t believe in ghosts, but if there was a place where the restless spirits of the damned walked the earth, it would be Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary. The castle-like prison was completed in 1829, and is a monument to the old adage “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The sprawling complex was designed by the “progressives” of the era (mostly Quakers) to be visually impressive and feature then-modern amenities like hot and cold running water. Its mission was to produce the penitence that the name “penitentiary” promises. This was done by forcing criminals into monk-like solitude with the hope that they would commune with God and mend their wicked ways. Maybe a good idea in theory, but in practice it meant nearly complete isolation within the cold stone walls of the prison—no books, no visitors, no community, and no hope, just damp stone walls. Unsurprisingly, the theory did not work and was abandoned almost entirely by the 20th century.
Nowadays, Eastern State Penitentiary is something between a museum and a tourist trap. It offers both daytime historical tours and nighttime “ghost tours,” hosts a Halloween festival featuring bars, bands, and five “haunts” built in the actual prison, and invites seemingly every paranormal TV show on earth to shoot content there. I guess you have to pay the bills on your abandoned prison somehow, but considering the legitimate suffering inflicted upon the powerless at Eastern State, it seems tasteless and crass. This place should exists as a sober lesson in inadvertent institutional cruelty, but is monetized as a fun, spooky place where you might see a ghost instead. I wonder what the prison’s residents think as they silently float through the gloomy cellblocks.
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