Eastern Penitentiary Tour
Eastern Penitentiary Tour
Never thought a prison could be interesting? Think again. Eastern Penitentiary has a vast and interesting history for you to explore on your next visit to Philadelphia.
The permanent exhibits are outstanding and include the "Voices of Eastern State" Audio Tour which has the voices of actual experiences from within the prison from within the long-abandoned cell blocks.
An exhibit that always makes an impression are the 39 white cat sculptures that are scattered around the prison to represent the colony of cats that invaded the prison as their own after the penitentiary closed in 1971.
Nick Cassway has a haunting collection on display called "Portraits of Inmates in the Death Row Population Sentenced as Juveniles" which is Forty-one portraits depicting approximately half of the juveniles on death row today are stenciled onto 24" x 36" steel plates. The portraits line the 30 foot high perimeter wall outside of Cell block 15, Eastern State's "Death Row."
Dayton Castleman has created an imaginative display of 2 inch steel pipes
that trace paths in and around Eastern State's original seven cell blocks like giant red lines representing imagined escape routes.
Michael Grothusen: midway of another day is a telling exhibit that is a sculpture that addresses the slow, almost still, passing of time which was experienced by many inmates who were incarcerated here.
And that is just a small amount of the exhibitions you will see that outline the history of this prison. The art brings together the violence and loneliness of prison life combined with the stark bareness of the actual penitentiary.
This is a must see on your next visit to Philadelphia.
