The Ludlow Street Jail was

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Federal prison A federal prison is operated under the jurisdiction of a federal government as opposed to a state or provincial body. Federal prisons are used for convicts who violated federal law (U.S., Mexico), inmates considered dangerous (Brazil), or those s ...

, located on

Ludlow Street Ludlow Street runs between Houston and Division Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Vehicular traffic runs south on this one-way street. Name Ludlow Street was named after Lieutenant Augustus Ludlow, the naval of ...

and

Broome Street Broome Street is an east–west street in Lower Manhattan. It runs nearly the full width of Manhattan island, from Hudson Street in the west to Lewis Street in the east, near the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge. The street is interrupted in ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Some prisoners, such as soldiers, were held there temporarily awaiting extradition to other jurisdictions, but most of the inmates were debtors imprisoned by their creditors.

Seward Park Campus __NOTOC__ The Seward Park Campus is a "vertical campus" of the New York City Department of Education located at 350 Grand Street at the corner of Essex Street, in the Lower East Side/Cooperative Village neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City. ...

now sits on the site of the jail. The jail was completed in June 1862 constructed of Philadelphia brick ornamented with New Jersey freestone trimmings. The facility contained 87 cells, each about 100 square feet. Long, barred windows provided light and air that was ahead of its time.

Notable inmates

The two most famous inmates of the Ludlow Street Jail were

Victoria Woodhull Victoria Claflin Woodhull, later Victoria Woodhull Martin (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927), was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement who ran for President of the United States in the 1872 election. While many historians ...

and

Boss Tweed William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878), often erroneously referred to as William "Marcy" Tweed (see below), and widely known as "Boss" Tweed, was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany ...

.Ludlow Street Jail - Ephemeral New York
/ref> Woodhull was the first female candidate for

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

and she spent a month at the jail, including election night, accused of publishing obscene materials. William "Boss" Tweed was a local politician and head of

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

, the name given to the

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that played a major role in

politics from the 1790s to the 1860s. After being arrested for bilking the city out of millions of dollars, Tweed jumped bail and was later apprehended in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. He was subsequently delivered to authorities in

on November 23, 1876. He was imprisoned in the Ludlow Street Jail, occupying the warden's parlor for $75.00 a week. Two years after being imprisoned, he died at the age of 55. In 1895,

Carlos Roloff Karol Rolow-Miałowski or Carlos Roloff Mialofsky, better known simply as Carlos Roloff, (4 November 1842 – 17 May 1907) was a Polish-born Cuban general and liberation activist, who fought against Spain in the Ten Years' War and the Cuban War o ...

was imprisoned on charges of violating neutrality laws for his

filibustering A filibuster is a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision. It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out ...

expeditions during the

Cuban War of Independence The Cuban War of Independence (), fought from 1895 to 1898, was the last of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain, the other two being the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) and the Little War (1879–1880). The final three months ...

. The charges were ultimately dropped and he was released. On May 17, 1923, William McGee and Edward M. Fuller were indefinitely committed to the Ludlow Street Jail for contempt of the Federal court, when they failed to return certain papers connected to the

Fuller case ''E. M. Fuller and Co. bankruptcy trial'', or the ''Fuller case'', was a criminal trial referring to the prosecution of Edward M. Fuller and William F. McGee for using their brokerage firm E. M. Fuller and Co. as a " bucket shop" in the early 19 ...

investigation. The jail was closed December 1927 and today the site is occupied by the

which opened in mid-1928.

References

* {{Lower East Side Buildings and structures demolished in 1927 Defunct prisons in New York (state) Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan Government buildings completed in 1862 William M. Tweed Jails in New York City Lower East Side Debtors' prisons 1862 establishments in New York (state)