news World's tallest prison planned in New York

[DAP]

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/why-worlds-tallest-jail-new-york-city-so-controversial

 

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A Brutalist structure and Art Deco monolith—together known colloquially as The Tombs—aren't the first jails to preside over downtown Manhattan. Towering above a senior center and a leafy community park, this jail in New York City has long been dedicated to incarceration, since the original Egyptian Revival–styled jail in New York City in 1838. Though the current architecture no longer resembles the ancient mausoleums of Egypt, the nickname The Tombs still resonates. Now, with New York City's criminal justice reform program underway, The Tombs—formally the Manhattan Detention Complex—are undergoing another demolition, making way for what could be the world's tallest jail.

 

Dubbed by locals as The Jailscraper, it's projected to stretch 300 feet in the air, about the height of NYC's Statue of Liberty or London's Big Ben. "It's a nightmare. For generations, Chinatown has been overshadowed by jails,” said Jan Lee, cofounder of Neighbors United Below Canal, a group of thousands of residents, businesses, and stakeholders who oppose the new detention center. "Our focus should be on safety, scale, and preserving the unique cultural identity of Chinatown. It's a neighborhood defined by its rich heritage, not by a hazardously constructed jail that threatens its surroundings.”

 

The Tombs's demolition is part of the city's larger Borough-Based Jails Program, a seismic initiative to close Rikers Island and replace the city's largest jail complex with four new jails in various communities. The new jails are to be designed with less harsh materials, while also providing more sunlight, greenery, and programming space. What's more, the idea is to also place the jails geographically closer to loved ones, attorneys, and courthouses. "Placing future jails in urban areas close to communities opens possibilities for local businesses and schools to actively engage in these rehabilitation efforts,” says Martin Stigsgaard, a neighbor of the Chinatown jail, professor at Spitzer School of Architecture CCNY, and principal architect of Studio Stigsgaard. "Incarceration should be a chance to help incarcerated people refocus and reintegrate into society.”

 

The Borough-Based Jails program is expected to cost $15 billion, according to the mayor's budget director, Jacques Jiha, nearly double the original price tag. Some New Yorkers believe the city may have gone too far. "High-rise buildings are used, obviously, because space is so limited in the city, but at a cost,” says Richard Wener, a member of the city's Closing Rikers Implementation Task Force and author of The Environmental Psychology of Prisons and Jails. "Most of the [task force] members were concerned about the jails getting too big—because of the difficulties in maintaining control and contact with staff and detainees as overall size grows. Technically a building can keep adding floors indefinitely, but increased size can make the facility more difficult to manage in a humane manner.”

 

Meanwhile, locals say the demolition in downtown Manhattan is wreaking havoc on the community. Large cracks are forming in the wall of the adjacent Chung Pak senior housing center, residents are shutting their windows to block the debris, and businesses are worrying the lack of foot traffic may mean having to close their doors.

 

"Although the jail has a long-standing history at this location, opting to reconstruct it—and even enlarge it—reflects a lack of engagement with the community's needs,” adds architect Martin Stigsgaard. The firm in charge of The Jailscraper has not been announced, but the Brutalist jail has been razed, with the Art Deco–style jail next. (Artists' murals and detailed friezes of immigrant stories were lost in the demolition process.) Many locals are concerned about the final design of the jail, as it remains unknown.

 

The Borough-Based Jails program, spearheaded by the city's Department of Design and Construction, presents an existential question: Can America use design to solve its mass incarceration problem? Many justice architects—those who design jails, prisons, courthouses, and police stations—and advocates of new jails contend that creating "more humane" settings can help ease recidivism rates, prepare the incarcerated for a better future once released, and offer a better environment for staff.

 

Those who oppose new jails, such as prison abolitionists, argue that new jails propel a criminal justice system that is fundamentally racist, classist, and harmful to society, and that more needs to be done to prevent incarceration in the first place.

 

The Borough-Based Jails are slated for completion in 2029. The city's jail population—80% of which are awaiting trial—is currently being held on Rikers Island, where 31 people have died since Mayor Eric Adams took office.

 

[Virgos Groove]

Quote

The city's jail population—80% of which are awaiting trial—is currently being held on Rikers Island, where 31 people have died since Mayor Eric Adams took office.

Jesus-

[Pheromosa]

briliant plan, first they make homelessness illegal, then they make them slaves in the prison tower. what movie is this?

[getBusy]

They're doing the same near my place in Brooklyn, demolished an older detention center (aka jail) to build it again. This city…

[Tropical]

I mean where do y'all want these prisons? In the middle of nowhere? So all the workers have to live in some hellscape? So no one good will work there, so they'll only be staffed by horrible violent, power playing guards who only ensure that the prisoners, upon release, are in even worse shape and mindspace than when they went in with?

[Karla Cabello]

fascism is worse everyday, how long until they make being gay illegal again 

[wastedpotential]

This is a shitty solution, but there aren't other options. Rikers is closing, and the specifics of that seem to require the inmate population to be spread across each of the boroughs. There's literally nowhere in Manhattan to go but up. It would be a very good step to release non-violent offenders, but considering the "tough on crime" attitude sweeping the city, expecting anything like that to be implemented is wishful thinking. This is incredibly dystopian, but is better than keeping Rikers open indefinitely (assuming these jails are designed and built in a way that reduces the risk of death (seemingly the most common way people die at Rikers is from overdose, and a new facility could presumably be designed with stricter entry protocols to screen out more drugs being smuggled in and easier medical access across all cells, since at least they'd all be in one building; the next most common way people seem to die is by falling from higher floors that look over lower floors, which can be mitigated with design), and no other option is viable in the short term. Still, it's dystopian as ****. 

[Dula Peep]

lets see how it goes first before we judge.........

 

 

 

 

 

[Communion]

40 minutes ago, Tropical said:

I mean where do y'all want these prisons? In the middle of nowhere?

 

17 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

This is a shitty solution, but there aren't other options

The option is to simply stop building jails and to end mass incarceration. 

 

Riker's doesn't even hold people found guilty of committing crimes - it is a pre-trial detention center. 

 

That means stuff like this:

1 hour ago, Virgos Groove said:

Jesus-

Means 31 people died waiting to even see what crime they were accused of. 

 

 

[Gov Hooka]

 

the US is and has always been a police state 

Edited April 11 by Gov Hooka

[Mariya Takeuchi]

Netflix made Squid Game real now it's time for The Platform 

[@michael]

Yes prison industrial complex yesssss

[torturedpoet]

The US will throw insane amounts of money on quite literally anything but social benefits for its citizens (that would actually solve most other problems). 

[fromily]

The whole concept of jails is INSANE in the US.

 

Lawyers will literally advise their clients to delay their trials as long as possible (which means staying in jail for longer) so that, when the trial does eventually take place, it's harder to track down witnesses, memories are less clear and emotions aren't running as high. Also the judge might take time spent in jail into account in the sentencing, leading to a shorter or non-existent prison sentence.

 

But then you're left with an institution housing every sort of criminal/person accused of a crime, with far less... idk how to put it... structure? than actual prisons. Many inmates actually find they prefer prison because it's less chaotic than jail.

 

Anyway this is just what I vaguely remember from various podcasts, mainly the war on drugs and serial season 3 (I think?).

[Bethenny Frankel]

i've talked with people in chinatown and they're PISSED at this being built there