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Photographs
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Opened
in 1829 as part of a controversial movement to change the behavior of
inmates through "confinement in solitude with labor," Eastern
State Penitentiary quickly became one of the most expensive and most
copied buildings in the young United States. It is estimated that more
than 300 prisons worldwide are based on the Penitentiary's wagon-wheel, or
"radial" floor plan. Some
of America's most notorious criminals were held in the Penitentiary's
vaulted, sky-lit cells, including bank robber Willie Sutton and Al Capone.
After 142 years of consecutive use, Eastern State Penitentiary was
completely abandoned in 1971, and now stands, a lost world of crumbling
cell blocks and empty guard towers.
Source/link: www.easternstate.org
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