The Tombs

For hours it is a miniature hell—there is no such thing as sleep—vermin of every kind crawl over you and eat you. You are on fire, you tear your flesh with your nails; huge rats rush between your legs or over your body; vulgarity, obscenity, profanity of every description reigns supreme.

Such is a description of the legendary Tombs jail, written by a reporter who spent a night there in 1870. The original building, constructed in 1838 and pictured above, was designed to look like an ancient Egyptian mausoleum. Adding to its graveyard feel, the jail was built on the in-fill of Collect Pond (a colonial source of drinking water still visible on the Viele map), and not long after its construction, began to sink into the earth.

This contributed to the jail’s famously miserable and unsanitary conditions. Corruption was rife (read Malachi Fallon’s story to learn more) and prisoners without means were particularly mistreated. In 1839, a drunk named Will was tossed in “The Hole,” a small building in the prison yard, and promptly forgotten about till four months later. By that time, he had been eaten by rats.

In 1902, the original building was rebuilt. This building was replaced in 1941 and again in 1974. But although conditions have improved since the Nineteenth Century (and the jail only houses inmates for short stays—for their actual sentences they are sent on to prisons such as Riker’s Island), to most New Yorkers, the jail still retains its original name and fearsome reputation.

The “Bridge of Sighs,” (below) a walkway that connected buildings in the original Tombs structure, was so named because prisoners who were condemned to be hanged would cross it on their way to the gallows. The walkway that currently connects the courthouse with the jail serves a less ominous purpose but has retained the same name.