Play in the City 2013

A place of aesthetic beauty from outside. Everyone has some good in them and given the opportunity to reflect on their wrong doings in the penitentiary they could rediscover the good. No cruel punishment so as not to make them feel hated or unaccepted by the society, so that they could return to the society and be decent citizens. 

Is it practical?

A place of silence and regret from inside. Eastern State Penitentiary now looks the way it made the prisoners feel: empty, broken, and alone. For prisoners inside, it’s not much different: no freedom, isolated, frustrating, desperate and somehow made the lonely people more aggressive. The isolation is the punishment actually in this place. I cannot imagine if I stay in such place day by day without talking. It seems prisoners became more like objects to be placed somewhere than people who needed reforming.

People here visiting with curiosity, with awe for the idea of penitentiary, don’t know how the inmates’ lives were here.  It was not a luxury to live in it, to be confined to your thoughts.  It is still in no better condition than it was when he was alive, but now that the context has changed, it is looked on with more reverence than it deserves.  It is still very much the same; it is harsh and unforgiving. Even the building itself is decaying, like all these past objects have the structure of enclosure and abuse and falling.  These walls that used to be crisp white are falling down, the whole structure of the building is decaying. It has all passed.  But I could feel the misery and insanity of these places and it was suffocating.  ESP is a decaying island that stands as a reminder of the suffering it caused.

But I could feel the misery and insanity of this place and it was suffocating. It's only a place which made people want to keep away from. Eastern State Penitatiary seemed like a place to cause someone to go mad rather than teach them to reflect. 

I see how everyone lived and cannot imagine how they managed to stay alive—the conditions this place holds serves to no ones sustainability to survive. Eastern State Penitentiary now looks the way it made the prisoners feel: empty, broken, and alone. The endless and repeating days are terrible. For prisoners inside, it’s not much different: no freedom, isolated, frustrating, desperate and somehow made the lonely people more aggressive. It seems prisoners became more like objects to be placed somewhere than people who needed reforming.

It is ridiculous and useless. Why are these visitors visiting?

Eastern State may have been founded on a good idea- not writing prisoners off as worthless unchangeable criminals but trying to help them be better people- but the methods did not work and were inhumane. The idea of reforming prisoners rather than just looking them up was revolutionary and enlightening, even though it tended not to work in the practices Eastern State used. ESP was a place that stripped people of what made them human, and prevented people from performing acts that keep people sane. It could almost be seen as a method of torture, where instead of helping people as the founders had hoped, it took away every liberty a person has.

The original design of Eastern state forced people to really look into themselves and their actions, alone in a cell with nothing to do but explore your own mind allows a person to form a new perspective on themself. 5 years of no contact with the outside world, apart from that obnoxious preacher and the occasional guard. Constant, unending boredom, or the constant threat of discovery and punishments if attempts to alleviate that boredom were discovered. Eastern State is truly unlike the other prisons today, prisoners must face perhaps the strongest punishment of our time, solitude. Eastern State was a lonely, maddeningly quiet and boring cell, and unproductive waste of his time. The solitary confinement was not going to make him a better person, it would just drive him mad. He had to be uncooperative to give himself something to do.

Eastern state penitentiary is an exemplary pioneer in the pursuit of reforming prisoners through isolation. Eastern state was a place for prisoners to come to terms with what they’d done, and to pray in solitude for forgiveness. It should work [be]cause the nature of human beings is kindness, so as long as they stay alone and contemplate, they will eventually find the way to their true heart.  Upon their release they would live more wholesome lives.

Eastern State was more torture or prison than reform center. Eastern State tried to mentally break me down with silence and darkness. Eastern State Penitentiary is an unusual prison where inmates rarely have the chance to communicate with others, which makes me try to find ways to talk to other inmates more. Solitary confinement was not a situation to be accepted without a fight. Eastern State was an eerie place, not necessarily having the effects on its prisoners it hoped to. It is a place where prisoners try to fight against isolation, which is meant by the builders in order to make the inmates contemplate and reflect towards reformation. The prison would seem useless-does it really do anything for reform and penitence? The methods were so damaging to the human spirit.

Conflict of silences. A place of aesthetic beauty from outside. A place of silence and regret from inside. Gone are the tiny insanity-inspiring chambers, replaced by shared-chambers capable of providing a life to their inhabitants. It was not a luxury to live in it, to be confined to your thoughts. It was corrupted over the years not by loose morals and flagging ideals but by the sheer pressure of numbers. It seems prisoners became more like objects to be placed somewhere than people who needed reforming.

These wall that used to be crisp white are falling down, the whole structure of the building is decaying. It has all passed. It is still in no better condition that it was when he was alive, but now that the context has changed, it is looked on with more reverence than it deserves. No matter, Eastern State as it is now, a true institution of learning, is the best form of itself that has ever been and undoubtedly could ever be.

It was corrupted over the years not by loose morals and flagging ideals but by the sheer pressure of numbers. 

It's easy for one to think over and reform and contemplate.

Everyone has some good in them and given the opportunity to reflect on their wrong doings in the penitentary they could rediscover the good.

Cleansing of the desire see and behave criminally for no one can dispute God's rules.

I see the overcrowding, the understaffing as a complete disregard for the ideals of this place. 

Today, it stands as a symbol of our dashed hopes.

A place of aesthetic beauty from outside. A place of silence and regret from inside.

Eastern State Penetentiary is the humane and right way to reform criminals.

From the point of view of a Quaker visionary, Esp was a failed excercise in penance and reform.

To give inmates a chance to do contemplation, to think, to reform themselves.

A dream that one point lived on but now has closed to face a new era. Dissapointment.

Although there was some subversion where the inmates talked to eachother, the majority of inmates time must have been solitary and the very fact that they where in a prison, must have made them think what it was that got them here.

No cruel punishment so as not to make them feel hated or unaccepted by the society, so that they could return to the society and be decent citizens. 

Eastern State was more torture or prison than reform center. 5 years of no contact with the outside world, apart from that obnoxious preacher and the occasional guard. Constant, unending boredom, or the constant threat of discovery and punishments if attempts to alleviate that boredom were discovered.

Life would seem scarily smaller, with low outlook on life, and the only hope for change relies on people coming by

“I am mad and eager to get out. I’d never be bad and have been cured by myself. Why [do] I have to stay here!”

It is funny to create the way to communicate with my buddies and neighbors. There’s no way for them to force me to welcome insolation.

Easter State tried to mentally break me down with silence and darkness.

Eastern State was a lonely, maddeningly quiet and boring cell, and unproductive waste of his time.

Eastern State Penitentiary is an unusual prison where inmates rarely have the chance to communicate with others, which makes me try to find ways to talk to other inmates more.

From the POV of Samuel Bruster, an uncooperative prisoner sentenced to five years of solitary confinement, ESP is a place where if you follow the rules and life a life in solidarity, it will drive you mad, as these conditions are not humane.

Eastern State cannot change me or control me, the “new prison” is just like all the rest and I will defeat it.

From the P.O.V of one of Quaker reformers:

Eastern state was a place for prisoners to come to terms with what they’d done, and to pray in solitude for forgiveness.

Eastern state penitentiary is an exemplary pioneer in the pursuit of reforming prisoners through isolation.

The idea of reforming prisoners rather than just looking them up was revolutionary and enlightening, even though it tended not to work in the practices Eastern State used.

It should work cause the nature of human beings is kindness, so as long as they stay alone and contemplate, they will eventually find the way to their true heart.

Eastern state penitentiary was for the most part a failure: prisoners found ways to communicate and rebel, and often played or refused the help of their reformers.

ESP was a place where they believed prisoners in solidarity would be able to repent for their sins, so that upon their release they would live more wholesome lives.

Eastern state provided prisoners with ample time and silence to think over their wrong doings, confess and improve themselves.

Eastern state Pen was efficient in providing an isolated environment for convicts to think about their wrongdoings and give penance.

I am disappointed by the loss of the original mission statement (now they lost the part about isolation), but proud of how it affected other prisons throughout the world.