Moyamensing Prison was a prison in the South Philadelphia neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was designed by Thomas Ustick Walter. Its cornerstone was laid on April 2, 1832; it opened on October 19, 1835, was in use until 1963, and was demolished in 1968. For nearly 140 years the Moyamensing Prison dominated the southwest corner of the intersection of Passyunk Avenue and Reed Street in South Philadelphia.
History
In 1831, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania authorized the erection of a facility to be called the prison of the city and county of Philadelphia. In published reports of the Board of Inspectors, it was listed as the Philadelphia County Prison, but was generally referred to by its location, which was about a mile south of the line of the city proper, in what was then Moyamensing Township, as the Moyamensing Prison, and as the New County Prison in some architectural plans. Moyamensing Prison originally comprised three separate facilities. The County Prison was the first to be built, founded in 1832 and finished in 1835. One of the additions to its north was what was originally called the “debtor's apartment”, or Debtor's Wing, and later the “apartment for females” (prison for females), founded in 1835 and finished in 1836. West of that was the structure originally called the “vagrant's apartment”, before also being called “apartment for females”, founded in 1837 and finished in 1838. Though originally attached to about 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land, the prison itself occupied a space of 310 feet (94 m) in front by 525 feet (160 m) in depth, and its additions to the north of 150 feet (46 m) in front. Eventually the complex was relegated to little more than its footprint.
Architecture and design Philadelphia architect Thomas U. Walter designed all three sections of the complex and was the primary contractor on the two later projects. He also designed extensions in 1870, but they were never executed. Walter is also well known for his later design of the dome of the United States Capitol, the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives wings of the Capitol as they exist today.
The facade of the prison consisted of a central building of 53 feet (16 m) in width, with receding wings on either side of 50 feet (15 m), flanked by massive octagonal towers. Beyond these towers, receding wing-walls were continued to the extremities of the front, and terminated with embattled bastions. The whole exterior was composed of a blue syenite, obtained from Quincy, Massachusetts. The style of architecture is that of the castles of the Middle Ages, and its decorations are in the perpendicular or Tudor style of English Gothic. The center building was three stories in height, diminishing at each story in regular offsets, capped with projecting belts. The corners were finished with circular warder towers of 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) in diameter, commencing at 10 feet (3.0 m) below the top of the front wall, and extending 5 feet (1.5 m) above it; these towers projected three-fourths of their circumference over the corners of the building, and were crowned with embattled parapets, supported by corbels. The front wall and both the flanks were also finished with battlements, pierced with embrasures, forming an embattled screen between the towers.
The wings were two stories in height and contained the gates of the entrance, each of which was 10 feet (3.0 m) wide and 17 feet (5.2 m) high. These wings were pierced with slip windows, and finished with embattled parapets, in the same manner as the center building. The octagonal towers which flanked the wings, and the bastions on the extreme angles of the front, were likewise crowned with pierced battlements corresponding with the rest of the design. The bastions projected 2 feet (0.61 m) from the wing walls, and measured, on each face, 15 feet (4.6 m) in width at the base, and 13 feet (4.0 m) at the top. The center building was surmounted by an embattled octagonal tower, which rose to the height of 77 feet (23 m) from the ground. The interior was disposed of in two general divisions, one for untried prisoners and the other for male convicts; the female convicts being confined in a building on the adjoining lot, which will subsequently be described.
The main prison contained 408 separate cells, built in two blocks of three stories in height, extending from each wing at right angles with the principal front. The cells opened into a corridor of 20 feet (6.1 m) in width, occupying the center of each block and extending the whole length and height of the building. The second and third stories were approached utilizing granite stairways leading to galleries, supported by cast iron brackets. A clerk's office was situated at the head of each corridor, from which every cell door may be seen throughout the whole range. Each cell was 9 feet (2.7 m) wide, 13 feet (4.0 m) long, and 9 feet (2.7 m) high, arched with bricks, and floored with oak planks. The cells were all furnished with separate hydrants, water closets, flues for ventilation, flues for the admission of fresh air, and flues for admitting warm air, generated by furnaces placed in the cellar of the building. The hydrants and water closets were supplied from the works at Fairmount. The furnaces were constructed at each end, and in the center of each block, and the warm air was conveyed along passages of 3 feet (0.91 m) in width, under the pavement of the corridor. The smoke flues were formed in these passages, the bottom and sides of them being composed of bricks, and the top of cast iron plates; these flues extended horizontally from the main furnaces at each end, to the center, where they rose perpendicularly to the top of the building; an ascending current was produced in the vertical portion of each flue by means of small furnaces constructed in the center, and which were also made to impart heat to the cells adjacent to them; forming an active current in the horizontal flues to convey heat along the whole range in sufficient quantities to keep all the cells of an agreeable temperature.
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