Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

on the east bank of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2004. The name "Sing Sing" was derived from the Sintsink Native American tribe from whom the land was purchased in 1685, and was formerly the name of the village. In 1970, the prison's name was changed to the Ossining Correctional Facility, but it reverted to its original name in 1985. There are plans to convert the original 1825 cell block into a period museum.Village looks to create Sing Sing museum, May 22, 2007. Earthtimes.org http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/65218.html The prison property is bisected by the Metro-North Railroad's four-track Hudson Line.

History

Early years

Sing Sing was the fifth prison constructed by New York state authorities. In 1824, the New York Legislature gave Elam Lynds, warden of Auburn Prison and a former

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

captain, the task of constructing a new, more modern prison. Lynds spent months researching possible locations for the prison, considering

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

, and Silver Mine Farm, an area in the town of Mount Pleasant on the banks of the

. By May, Lynds had decided to build a prison on Mount Pleasant, near (and thus named after) a small village in

Westchester County Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...

named Sing Sing, whose name came from the

Wappinger The Wappinger () were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut. At the time of first contact in the 17th century they were primarily based in what is now Dutchess ...

( Native American) words ''sinck sinck'' which translates to 'stone upon stone'. In March 1825, the legislature appropriated $20,100 to purchase the site, and the project received the official stamp of approval. Lynds selected 100 inmates from the Auburn prison for transfer and had them transported by barge via the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly redu ...

and down the

to freighters. On their arrival on May 14, the site was "without a place to receive them or a wall to enclose them"; "temporary barracks, a cook house, carpenter and blacksmith's shops" were rushed to completion.Google Books
/ref> When it was opened in 1826, it was considered a model prison because it turned a profit for the state. By October 1828 Sing Sing was completed. Lynds employed the Auburn system, which imposed absolute silence on the prisoners; the system was enforced by whipping and other punishments. It was John Luckey, the Prison Chaplain around 1843, who held the Principal Keeper of Sing Sing, Elam Lynds, accountable to New York Governor William H. Seward and President of the Board of Inspectors, John Edmonds, to have Lynds removed. Chaplain Luckey proceeded to create a great religious library. His purpose was to teach correct moral principles. His religious library was challenged in 1844 when John Edmonds placed Eliza Farnham in charge of the women's ward at Sing Sing. In 1844, the New York Prison Association was inaugurated to monitor state prison administration. The NY Prison Association was made up of reformers interested in the rehabilitation and humane treatment of prisoners. Farnham was able to obtain the job largely on the recommendation of these reformers. Farnham overturned the strictly silent practice in prison and introduced social engagement to shift concern more toward the future instead of dwelling on the criminal past. She included novels by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

in Chaplain Luckey's religious library, novels the chaplain did not approve of. This was the first documented expansion of the prison library to include moral teachings from secular literature.

Since 1900

Thomas Mott Osborne's tenure as warden of Sing Sing was brief but dramatic. Osborne arrived in 1914 with a reputation as a radical prison reformer. His report of a week-long incognito stay inside New York's Auburn Prison indicted traditional prison administration in merciless detail. Prisoners who had bribed officers and intimidated other inmates lost their privileges under Osborne's regime. One of them conspired with powerful political allies to destroy Osborne's reputation, even succeeding in getting him indicted for a variety of crimes and maladministration. After Osborne triumphed in court, his return to Sing Sing was a cause for wild celebration by the inmates. Another notable warden was Lewis Lawes. He was offered the position of warden in 1919, accepted in January 1920, and remained for 21 years as Sing Sing's warden. While warden, Lawes brought about reforms and turned what was described as an "old hellhole" into a modern prison with sports teams, educational programs, new methods of discipline, and more. Several new buildings were constructed during the years Lawes was warden. Lawes retired in 1941 and died six years later. In 1943, the old cellblock was closed and the metal bars and doors were donated to the war effort. In 1989, the institution was accredited for the first time by the American Correctional Association, which established a set of national standards by which it judged every correctional facility. , Sing Sing houses approximately 1,500 inmates, employs about 900 people, and has hosted over 5,000 visitors per month. The original 1825 cell block is no longer used and in 2002 plans were announced to turn it into a museum. In April 2011 there were talks of closing the prison to take advantage of its valuable real estate.

Executions

In total, 614 men and women – including four inmates under federal death sentences – were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing until the abolition of the death penalty in 1972. After a series of escapes from death row, a new Death House was built in 1920 and began executions in 1922. High profile executions in Sing Sing's electric chair, nicknamed " Old Sparky", include

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...

on June 19, 1953, for

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tang ...

for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

on nuclear weapon research; and Gerhard Puff on August 12, 1954, for the murder of an FBI agent. The last person executed in New York state was Eddie Lee Mays, for murder, on August 15, 1963. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court ruled in '' Furman v. Georgia'' that the death penalty was unconstitutional if its application was inconsistent and arbitrary. This led to a temporary ''de facto'' nationwide moratorium (executions resumed in other states in 1977), but the electric chair at Sing Sing remained. In the early 1970s, the electric chair was moved to Green Haven Correctional Facility in working condition, but was never used again.

Educational programs

In 2013, Sing Sing Superintendent Michael Capra and NBC producer Dan Slepian working with a group of 12 incarcerated men to start a program called "Voices From Within", in an effort to "redefine what it means to pay a debt to society" Their first project was an emotional video about gun violence, where the men spoke directly to the youth in the communities from which they came. Slepian released the video in 2014 TEDxTalk at Sing Sing. The video is currently being used by various non-profits and law enforcement agencies to help prevent gun violence. In 1996, Katherine Vockins founded Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Sing Sing,Susan Hodara
"For Inmates, a Stage Paved With Hope"
''The New York Times'', May 27, 2007. enabling theater professionals to provide prisoners with a curriculum of year-round theater-related workshops. It has produced several plays at Sing Sing open to prisoners and community guests and has shown that the use of dramatic techniques leads to significant improvements in the cognitive behavior of the program's participants and a reduction in

recidivism Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of th ...

once paroled. Its impact on social and institutional behavior was formally evaluated by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice, in collaboration with the NY State Department of Corrections. Led by Dr. Lorraine Moller, Professor of Speech and Drama at John Jay, the study found that it had a positive impact on prisoner Pavle Stanimirovic, one of the program's first participants, that "the longer the inmate was in the program, the fewer violations he committed." RTA currently operates at five other New York state prisons. The organization, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, provides college courses to incarcerated people to help reduce recidivism and poverty and strengthen families and communities. In 1998, as part of the get-tough-on-crime campaign, state and federal funding for college programs inside the prison was stopped. Understanding the positive effects of education in the transformation and rehabilitation of incarcerated people, inmates at Sing Sing Correctional Facility reached out to religious and academic volunteers to develop a college degree-granting program. Under Anne Reissner, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison was founded to restore college education at Sing Sing through private funding.

Football team

In 1931, new prison reforms permitted Sing Sing State Penitentiary prisoners to partake in recreation opportunities. The

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

and football teams, and the

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...

presentations and concerts, were funded through revenue from paid attendance. Tim Mara, the owner of the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

, sponsored the Sing Sing Black Sheep, Sing Sing's football team. Mara provided equipment and uniforms and players to tutor them in fundamentals. He helped coach them the first season. Known as the Black Sheep, they were also sometimes called the Zebras. All games were "home" games, played at Lawes Stadium, named for Warden Lewis E. Lawes. In 1935, the starting quarterback and two other starters escaped the morning before a game.

Alabama Pitts Edwin Collins "Alabama" Pitts Jr. (November 22, 1909 – June 7, 1941) was an American convicted felon who garnered media attention in his attempt to play professional baseball after his release from Sing Sing prison. While serving five years for ...

was their starting quarterback and star for the first four seasons, but then finished his sentence. Upon release, Alabama Pitts played for the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...

in 1935. In 1932, "graduate"

Jumbo Morano Jumbo (about December 25, 1860 – September 15, 1885), also known as Jumbo the Elephant and Jumbo the Circus Elephant, was a 19th-century male African bush elephant born in Sudan. Jumbo was exported to Jardin des Plantes, a zoo in Paris, and t ...

was signed by the Giants and played for the

Paterson Nighthawks Paterson may refer to: People * Paterson (surname) * Paterson (given name) Places Australia *Paterson, New South Wales *Paterson River, New South Wales * Division of Paterson, an electoral district in New South Wales *Paterson, Queensland, a lo ...

of the Eastern Football League. In 1934, State Commissioner of Correction,

Walter N. Thayer Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...

banned the advertising of activities at the prison, including football games. On November 19, 1936, a new rule banned ticket sales. No revenues would be derived from show and sports event ticketing. These funds had been paying for disbursements to prisoners' families, especially the kin of those executed, and for equipment and coaches' salaries. With this new edict, the season ended and prisoners were no longer allowed to play football outside Sing Sing.

Museum

Plans to turn a portion of Sing Sing into a museum date back to 2002, when local officials sought to turn the old powerhouse into the museum, linked by a tunnel to a retired cell block, for $5 million. In 2007, the village of Ossining applied for $12.5 million in federal money for the project, at the time expected to cost $14 million. The proposed museum would display the Sing Sing story as it unfolded over time.

Contribution to American English

The expression "up the river" to describe someone in prison or heading to prison derives from the practice of sentencing people convicted in New York City to serve their terms in Sing Sing, which is located up the

from the city. The slang expression dates from 1891.

Gallery

File:Houghton AC8 W6795 840aag - American Scenery, Sing Sing.jpg, View from afar, 1857 engraving File:Prison and workshops, looking south, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views crop.jpg, The prison and workshops, c.1863–1885 File:Sing Sing (prison) - cell.jpg, A cell in the older facility File:Sing Sing after arson fire.jpg, Sing Sing after the 1913 fire File:Sing 3842835064 769bc7715d o.jpg, The prison, c.1913 File:Sing Sing old cell block.jpg, Old cell block, c.1938 File:Sing Sing 012.jpg, Guard tower in 2014. Hudson River and Tappan Zee Bridge are in the background.

Notable inmates

Frank Abbandando Frank Abbandando (July 11, 1910 – February 19, 1942), nicknamed "The Dasher", was a New York City contract killer who committed many murders as part of the infamous Murder, Inc. gang. His preferred killing method was to stab his victims t ...

and Harry Maione, hitmen and members of Murder, Inc., both executed in 1942. *

George Appo George Washington Appo (born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 4, 1856; died in New York City on May 17, 1930) was a pickpocket and fraudster whose manner of speech in a testimony became influential in depictions of criminals . George himself wrote ...

, 19th-century pickpocket and con artist. * Charles Becker, NYPD Lieutenant convicted for the murder of Herman Rosenthal and executed at Sing Sing on July 30, 1915. * Maria Barbella, the second woman sentenced to death by electric chair. The sentence was later overruled and Barbella was set free. * Robert Bierenbaum, convicted in October 2000 of having murdered his estranged wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum, 15 years earlier. * Louis Buchalter, American mobster and head of Murder, Inc. who served 18 months at Sing Sing for grand larceny. On January 22, 1920, he returned to Sing Sing on a 30 month sentence for attempted burglary. Buchalter was released on March 16, 1922. He was later executed for murder in 1944. * Elmer "Trigger" Burke, hitman, executed in 1958. * Louis Capone and Emanuel Weiss, members of Murder, Inc., both executed in 1944. * Frank Cirofici, Harry Horowitz, Jacob Seidenshner, and Louis Rosenberg, accomplices of Charles Becker, were all executed in 1914. *

Charles Chapin Charles E. Chapin (October 19, 1858 – December 13, 1930) was a New York editor of Joseph Pulitzer’s Evening World. He was convicted of the murder of his wife and sentenced to a 20-year-to-life term in Sing Sing prison. Career Chapin was ...

, editor of '' New York Evening World'', popularly known as the "Rose Man of Sing Sing". * Mary Frances Creighton, suspected serial killer, executed, along with Everett Applegate, in 1936. * Monk Eastman, New York gangster and leader of the Eastman Gang, was sentenced to 10 years at Sing Sing in 1904. * Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, so-called Lonely Heart Killers, were both executed in 1951. * Albert Fish, early-20th century American serial killer, child rapist, and cannibal, executed in 1936. * Paul Geidel, formerly, the longest-serving prison inmate in the United States whose sentence ended with his parole, who served 68 years and 296 days in various New York state prisons. * Martin Goldstein and Harry Strauss, hitmen and members of Murder, Inc., were both executed in 1941. *

Mary Jones Mary Jones may refer to: People American * Mary Alice Jones (1898–1980), American children's writer *Mary Cover Jones (1896–1987), American psychologist * Mary Ellen Jones (chemist) (1922–1996), American biochemist * Mary Ellen Jones (politi ...

, a 19th-century

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

prostitute who was a center of media attention for coming to court wearing feminine attire. * Leroy Keith, serial killer, executed in 1959. * Fritz Julius Kuhn, German former leader of the German American Bund, incarcerated at Sing Sing various times between 1939-1945 and deported to Germany. * Angelo LaMarca, convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Peter Weinberger, executed in 1958. * James Larkin, political activist and union leader sentenced to five to ten years in Sing Sing prison for "criminal anarchy" in 1919. * Eddie Lee Mays, executed in 1963, became the last person executed in New York. *

George C. Parker George C. Parker (March 16, 1860''New York, Sing Sing Prison Admission Registers, 1865-1939'' – 1936) was an American con man best known for his repeated successes "selling" the Brooklyn Bridge. He made his living conducting illegal sales of ...

, infamous con man known for "selling" the Brooklyn Bridge. * John Roche, serial killer and rapist, executed in 1956. *

, executed in 1953 for conspiring to pass secrets of the American atomic bomb project to the

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. *

Norman Roye Norman Roye (September 6, 1935 – January 19, 1956) was an American serial killer and rapist who murdered three women in Harlem, Manhattan over the winter and spring of 1954. He was active at the same time as John Francis Roche, an unrelated seri ...

, serial killer and rapist, executed in 1956. *

Hans Schmidt (priest) Hans B. Schmidt (1881Gado, Mark. 2006. ''Killer Priest: The Crimes, Trials, and Execution of Father Hans Schmidt.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood, p. 5. – February 18, 1916) was a German Catholic priest, rapist, convicted murderer, and suspected s ...

, executed in 1916, was the only Roman Catholic priest executed in the United States. * Tony Sirico, actor known for his role as Paulie Gaultieri on the critically acclaimed television series ''

The Sopranos ''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based American Mafia, Italian-American mobster, portraying h ...

'', convicted of felony weapons possession and served 20 months of his four-year sentence at Sing Sing. * Ruth Snyder, executed along with Henry Judd Gray in 1928, Snyder's execution was illegally photographed. * Willie Sutton, career criminal who escaped December 11, 1932. * Joseph Valachi, member of the American Mafia, served his first prison sentence (of approximately one year) at Sing Sing before he was 20 years old. *

Jon-Adrian Velazquez Jon-Adrian Velazquez was an inmate in the maximum security Sing-Sing prison in New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state i ...

, serving a 25 years to life sentence after murder conviction, released in 2021. * Ferdinand Ward,

Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and We ...

swindler who ran a New York City investment firm with Ulysses S. Grant Jr., son of former

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 Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

Ulysses S. Grant, revealed to be a Ponzi scheme that bankrupted the Grant family in 1884. * Richard Whitney served a sentence for embezzlement at Sing Sing from 1938 until 1941. * Frederick Charles Wood, serial killer, executed in 1963.

References

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United Stat ...

's '' Alexis de Tocqueville Tour''
C-SPAN's ''Inside the Sing Sing Prison'', June 6, 1997

Unedited footage from C-SPAN's Sing Sing documentary

Mug shots of prisoners and photos of the prison 1920–1941 (digitized images)
from the Lewis Lawes Papers, Lloyd Sealy Library Digital Collections
Sing Sing Prison Museum website
{{Coord, 41, 9, 6, N, 73, 52, 8, W, display=title 1828 establishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Westchester County, New York Prisons in New York (state) Capital punishment in New York (state)