Fences Do Make Good Neighbors: Prison Is Next-Door
After viewing an array of small, dull houses in New Jersey, my husband and I drove over the Tappan Zee Bridge, crossing the majestic Hudson River. We assumed that New York's Westchester County -- the suburbs made famous by John Cheever and by 1950s movies of middle-class angst -- was out of our price range. But why not just look?
We ended up finding our Mecca, a town with beautiful, affordable houses on quiet tree-lined streets. As it happens, though, many of the folks who end up in our hamlet don't come voluntarily.
We are now the proud owners of a home in Ossining, N.Y. Our immediate neighbors, on a quiet cul de sac, seem lovely and no doubt share our sense of (aspiring) bourgeois respectability. But if we walk a mile in the wrong direction, we are at the doorstep of some of the most violent criminals in the country.
Since 1825, Ossining has been the home of Sing Sing, the famous prison. On the banks of the Hudson right next to the train station, it seems bizarrely close to placid suburbia. Just as commuters pull up their collars to keep out the chill of the river wind, so do prisoners a few hundred yards away. It's hard not to wonder how this juxtaposition came about and -- with condo development planned next door -- whether it will last.
Until 1901, Ossining itself was also called Sing Sing (both names derive from an Indian word meaning "stone upon stone"). But the townspeople didn't really want the association. And who could blame them? The prison had a reputation as a veritable torture chamber from its earliest days. According to David Goewey, the author of "Crash Out," a book on a famous escape from Sing Sing, one bloodthirsty warden preferred to hire "prison keepers who couldn't count, so that the confusion would provide added excuses for whippings."
Not that fresh excuses were needed. Prisoners were subjected to corporal punishment for talking, winking, nodding, laughing, whistling, jumping and running. Visitors weren't much allowed either, so there was little chance of complaint reaching the outside world.
Denis Brian, the author of "Sing Sing: The Inside Story of a Notorious Prison," explains that in the early 19th century "the Rockefellers and other plutocrats" in Westchester "raised powerful objections" when they learned that a prison might be located nearby. They needn't have worried about the prisoners themselves. But one does wonder about Ossining's population in the 19th century, made up largely of prison guards -- the men who carried out the floggings and "Chinese Water Cures."
Things changed in 1919, when Lewis E. Lawes, a progressive devoted to rehabilitating prisoners, took over as warden. "I'm willing to meet you halfway and give you all the breaks that your record entitles you to," he told the inmates on his first day. And Lawes did in fact improve conditions, adding a school and library and allowing visits from family members. Though he did not practice the harsh discipline of his predecessors, he felt the place safe enough to move his family to a house inside the prison gates.
Unfortunately, Lawes was a little too trusting. In 1941, three inmates made a break for it. As Mr. Goewey tells the story, Lawes's amazed disbelief that his charges would try such a stunt prevented him from sounding the prison's general alarm and may have cost the lives of two Ossining police officers, slain by the escapees on their way through the town.
Still, Lawes may have done more than anyone to put Sing Sing on the map. He brought Hollywood inside the gates many times, allowing Warner Bros. to shoot movies there like James Cagney's "Angels With Dirty Faces."
The prison had other brushes with the outside world, of course. The Yankees played exhibition games there -- Babe Ruth is reported to have hit his longest home run at Sing Sing. Much later, Cheever taught writing to the prisoners. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "Falconer" (1977), is set at a place like Sing Sing. But the real fame of the prison comes most from its inmates, who have included Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and a former head of the New York Stock Exchange. With such a history, it's not surprising that state officials hope to open a Sing Sing museum.
For all its storied past, though, Sing Sing sits on prime real estate. It has river views. Will the town's newest commuter class ever push to have it moved? After all, the desire to escape New York for the suburbs is greater than ever, and Ossining's property values are depressed compared with those of its neighbors. Surely a shrewd developer will see an opportunity here.
Mr. Goewey, whose father, grandfather and brother were officers at Sing Sing, says he "can't imagine" the prison moving. "Culturally and aesthetically," he believes, "that's what made Ossining." I, for one, am not quite so attached to the institution. Looking out on the Hudson foliage from the train platform, I'm just glad that I've been sent up the river.
Editor's note: Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal (Copyright © 2005, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) All rights reserved. For more about David Goewey's book, Crash Out, see Five Great Books About Sing Sing Recommended by David Goewey in the January issue of the Ossining Review of Books and Crash Out in the February issue.