Philadelphia attracts tourists with abandoned prison
Eerie setting proves perfect venue for Halloween tales

A Pennsylvania Prison Society volunteer prepares for a Halloween tour at the 168-year-old former Eastern State Penitentiary, owned by The City and County of Philadelphia. Ten thousand visitors are expected for its popular Halloween tours. Photo courtesy of Eastern State Penitentiary Committee.

Most people think of Halloween as a time for the young at heart - carving jack o'lanterns, scurrying about as ghosts and goblins and shouting "Trick or treat!?"

But did you know that Halloween - frankly, scaring people - is a big business in some counties?

An abandoned state penitentiary that the City and County of Philadelphia purchased more than 15 years ago expects to attract 25,000 visitors this year, some of whom will pay $15 during the Halloween season to take a night-time tour of the facility.

The Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site expects to make about $32,000 - a fifth of its annual budget - during its special tours this month.

For Halloween, Charles Adams III, a newspaper columnist who publishes books about ghost stories, will give groups of 25 a tour of the prison. Aided by special lighting and sound effects and hired actors, the 40-minute tours promise to be quite eerie, according to Sean Kelly, program director, the historic site's sole employee.

Marketing a scary space
Currently, the site is run by the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the same non-profit social services group that oversaw its construction more than 150 years ago. The site will become its own non-profit 501(c)3 next year.

The historic site advertises and markets itself in several ways. It has its own Web site, which is maintained at a cost of about $100 a year.

For special events, such as the Halloween tours, the historic prison has placed ads in surrounding county newspapers, has a TV commercial running on cable TV and has placed flyers all over town.

More than scary
The site has multiple uses, in addition to serving as a place for Halloween tours. Volunteer committees produce prison-themed educational exhibits and art shows. A current exhibit focuses on the role of labor in prisons and three art exhibits are now on display.

One of the exhibits, "Life Sentences," features portraits of women prisoners who are currently serving life sentences in other prisons, with tape recordings of the inmates discussing the nature of their crimes and what their life is like in prison.

"Artists love the space," Kelly said. "It's not easy describing it. You have to see its scale and grandeur."

"The space is so beautiful. People have a hard time realizing they're in a prison.

The prison has more than 2,000 skylights and some of its ceilings soar to 40 feet. "It looks like a church," Kelly noted. "It's a mecca for photographers." In fact, a group of photography students from UCLA plans to spend two weeks photographing the site this fall.

Symposiums are held there too, on current-day topics such as prison overcrowding.

"It's an amazing resource," Kelly said.

Special events are held throughout the year, including a Bastille Day celebration, a "Pep the Dog" day (a Black labrador retriever was supposedly sentenced to life in the prison after killing its owner's cat). Children (they must be over age 7) are encouraged to attend and bring photos of their pets. The local police show off their police dogs' skills.

Renovation
The place may be beautiful, but is it safe? "No," answers Kelly. "It's a ruin. It's a strange thing to see - a municipal government letting people tour a ruin. It's a mess."

Everyone who enters the building signs a waiver, absolving Philadelphia and the society of any responsibility if he or she is injured. All who enter wear hardhats, including symposium audiences and tour-goers. So far, no one has ever been hurt.

Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia saw its last prisoners more than 20 years ago. The historic site now features art and educational exhibits, symposiums on current prison issues and historic tours.

Its electric, water and sewer systems are all shot. (Kelly operates out of a completely modern office three blocks away from the site.)

The first stage of a major renovation begins Nov. 3, the day after Halloween tours end. That's when new roofs will be added to two buildings at a cost of $250,000 - $150,000 from the county and $100,000 from the state. The county has committed $1 million a year for five years, if the society agrees to raise a matching percentage.

Parking is no problem - free spaces for 1,000 cars are available, adjacent to the site, since the school board purchased several blocks, tore down buildings, and then decided not to build a new school there.

History
In 1980, Philadelphia paid the state of Pennsylvania a little more than $400,000 for the building, which had been in the business of holding prisoners for almost 150 years, opening its doors in 1829. It was constructed for $770,000, at an astronomical price for back then, Kelly noted.

The prison has its roots in American history. It was built after funding was approved by the Pennsylvania Legislature, which was heavily lobbied by the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (now the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the group that runs the historic site). The group's first meeting was held at the home of Benjamin Franklin.

More than 300 prisons worldwide have based their floor plan on the building's wagon-wheel design.

Some of its more well-known inhabitants included Al Capone (he spent eight months there) and bank robber Willie Sutton. (The prison holds a Willie Sutton birthday weekend in June, featuring a close look at a famous prison escape by Sutton and others that occurred in 1945, when they tunneled out of the prison. It took them 18 months to build the tunnel, but were discovered within minutes of the escape.)

Philadelphia certified the prison as a historic property in 1958 and the federal government designated it as a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

Eastern State Penitentiary saw its last prisoners in 1971, when it was used to temporarily house inmates from Holmesburg County Prison, following a riot there.

In 1974, Philadelphia bought the prison from the state. Decisions on what to do with the prison - tear it down, turn it into a shopping mall -came and went with each new mayoral regime.

In 1988, a task force made up of area architects, preservationists and historians was formed and three years later, funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts began preservation efforts. It opened for historic tours in 1994, attracting more than 10,000 visitors.

The next year, with more outside funding, permanent museum exhibits were installed, a marketing campaign began and the site attracted attention from The New York Times, and "Art in America," which airs on BBC and PBS, nearly doubling attendance.

So take a look around your county. You may have a relic that, with a little digging into its past and marketing know-how, could be ready for Halloween 1998.

(To hear the Eastern State Penitentiary information line, call 215/236-3300. For specific information on its Halloween tour, call 215/763-NITE. To contact Kelly, call 215/564-6377 or send e-mail to e-state@libertynet.org.)