(rshsdepot) NAPANOCH, N.Y. O&W Station

[Jim Dent <jdent_@_erols.com>]

Thanks to the O&W RHS for pointing this out...

-From the NY Times...



              May 12, 2001 

              Proud Prison Documents its Past

              By LISA W. FODERARO

              NAPANOCH, N.Y. — In the annals of
              historic preservation, it is a most unlikely
              player: a maximum-security state prison
              teeming with beefy correction officers and
              their hard-bitten charges.

              But the staff and inmates of Eastern New
              York Correctional Facility, a granite fortress
              here in the shadow of the Shawangunk
              Mountains, have commemorated the prison's
              first 100 years by producing a book, a video,
              a monument and an official postal
              cancellation.

              And they are not finished. The prison is now
              fashioning a small museum from an old train
              station on its grounds. When completed next
              year, it will display artifacts, photographs and
              records from the prison's past, as well as its
              role in New York State's penal history.

              Who would want to visit a prison museum?
              Alcatraz, once a forbidding prison on a rocky
              island in San Francisco Bay, has long been a
              tourist attraction, of course, drawing 1.4
              million visitors annually. In recent years, it has
              been joined by a handful of others.

              In South Africa, Robben Island off Cape
              Town, where former President Nelson
              Mandela was imprisoned, has become a
              museum, and something of a national shrine.
              In Dublin, Kilmainham Jail, where most of the
              revered Irish patriots served time or were
              executed, has been converted to a museum of
              the struggle for independence and subsequent
              civil war. And in the United States, a prison
              museum was established three years ago in
              Louisiana on the grounds of the state
              penitentiary at Angola.

              Closer to home, the village housing New
              York's most famous prison also wants to get
              into the act. In Ossining, plans are under way
              for an $8 million museum, Sing Sing Historic
              Prison, on the perimeter of the correctional
              facility where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
              were put to death.

              "People are fascinated by criminal justice and what goes on behind those walls," said
              David L. Miller, superintendent of the Eastern New York Correctional Facility here
              in Ulster County. 

              As part of its centennial celebration last year, Eastern held an open house that drew
              850 people, mostly local residents. On June 2, the public will again be able to visit
              Eastern's grounds and to preview the planned museum.

              The depot that will house the museum sits on the old Delaware & Hudson Canal. In
              1902, the canal was replaced by the New York, Ontario & Western Railway,
              which is now defunct but had been instrumental in bringing inmates and building
              materials to the site. The depot is being restored by more than two dozen inmates,
              armed with 130 gallons of paint stripper.

              Eastern's efforts attracted the notice of the Preservation League of New York State,
              a nonprofit organization that last week gave the prison one of its historic
              preservation awards. "It's unusual that they would have a preservation ethic or even
              be concerned about their heritage," said Scott P. Heyl, the Preservation League's
              president. "People don't think of prisons in terms of historic sites that should be
              venerated or protected. But they are cultural resources that have a story to tell, and
              they contribute to who we are as a people."

              When asked about the prison's history, the administration avoids romanticizing crime
              or even mentioning notorious alumni. (Twist their arms and staff members will offer
              two names: Gary McGivern, who was granted clemency after his conviction for
              murdering a deputy sheriff, and Harold Konigsberg, a mob enforcer.)

              But the staff unflinchingly describes the capricious and sometimes brutal practices
              that went on there, particularly during the prison's decades-long tenure as a so-
              called Institution for Defective Delinquents, when low-functioning and mentally
              retarded men, many never convicted of a crime, were held indefinitely. Through the
              1920's and most of the 1930's, there was no effort to provide therapy or education
              to the inmates. Instead, they did manual labor in a prison-run factory and performed
              military drills using wooden rifles several hours a day, a practice that was said to
              "teach instant obedience and self-control."

              Mr. Miller said he was particularly struck by a 1920's newspaper account of a riot
              in the mess hall, and the hands-on approach of the warden at the time. "He went into
              the arsenal, checked out a revolver, leveled it at the most aggressive inmate
              involved, and that was the end of the disturbance," he said. "When there was an
              escape, he would personally go after the inmate in his car. I fail miserably by
              comparison."

              Perhaps one reason the prison administration is so candid about its history is its
              belief that Eastern is now a much better place.

              In 1982, Eastern was the first prison in the state system's history to meet the
              standards of the American Correctional Association, and its educational and
              vocational programs earn high marks from watchdog groups that are often critical of
              the system. Inmates assigned to a Braille transcription unit, for instance, transcribe
              some 200 books a year into the Braille format for schoolchildren. The prison's
              1,440 acres include a dairy farm and a saw mill run with the help of inmates.

              There is a special 60-bed unit for blind and deaf inmates, while a medium-security
              annex offers help to men trying to overcome a history of drug abuse and domestic
              violence. And among the inmates, who earn only 55 cents to $1.55 a day, a
              surprising spirit of philanthropy resulted in their recent contribution of $4,000,
              collected over the course of a year, to a fund benefiting children with cancer.

              "It has the reputation of being the most enlightened and well-programmed
              maximum-security institution for men in the state," said Robert Gangi, executive
              director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group.

              Still, Mr. Gangi said he was uneasy with Eastern's plans for a museum and the
              introduction of tourism to the prison experience, particularly because Eastern is so
              atypical. "Prisons are essentially instruments of punishment and, in my judgment, are
              often inherently brutal institutions," Mr. Gangi said. "To the extent that Eastern is a
              departure from all of that, people could easily slip into thinking, `Well, this isn't so
              bad, this is a viable public institution.' "

              Whatever impression the history project here leaves on the public, the process of
              pulling it all together over the last five years has engrossed the staff and inmates.

              Jeff Rubin, a correction counselor who did research and helped plan the station
              restoration, gleaned information and old photos from local libraries, postcard clubs,
              the O & W Railway Historical Society and the New York State Library. He won a
              federal grant of $129,000 for the prison to restore the train station. Mr. Rubin also
              helped to get the station listed on both the state and national historic registers.

              "You know how in life you feel you could have had another calling?" Mr. Rubin said.
              "I've always had a hankering for local history."

              The prison's neighbors have also aided the museum's cause. The daughter of a past
              prison superintendent donated a fat scrapbook of newspaper clippings dating from
              the 1920's, as well as reels of film capturing prison scenes from the 1930's and 40's.
              Another resident, a retired employee, contributed artifacts: two hefty cell-door locks
              from the prison's earliest days.

              But it is the inmates who seem to have derived the greatest release from their
              involvement. Peter Gripaldi, a 58-year-old wood worker who has served seven and
              a half years for attempted murder, made a meticulous model of the train station,
              based on original blueprints. It required 12,476 pieces, he noted, and took 178
              days, 1,768 hours and 116 passes, which allowed for easier movement within the
              prison. "Not that I was counting," he said. "There was an incredible amount of
              freedom, if you will," Mr. Gripaldi added. "The walls sort of disappeared."

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