SPECTRALWhat happened here
Eastern State was built to test a radical idea, the “Pennsylvania system”: every prisoner was kept in solitary confinement, alone in a vaulted cell lit by a single skylight, to reflect and repent. Guards hooded prisoners whenever they moved them, so that no one would recognise another inmate. John Haviland's design, with cellblocks radiating from a central hub like the spokes of a wheel, was copied by some 300 prisons around the world.
Charles Dickens visited in 1842 and condemned the solitary system as cruel. The prison grew overcrowded, and the isolation was formally abandoned in 1913. Its most famous inmate, Al Capone, served eight months here in 1929–30 in a cell furnished with rugs, a radio and lamps. The prison closed in 1971 and stood abandoned, with trees growing through its cellblocks, until it opened to visitors as a museum in 1994.
The legends
Staff and visitors report disembodied laughter in Cellblock 12, shadowy figures gliding along Cellblock 6 and a face in the guard tower. A locksmith restoring an old lock in Cellblock 4 in the early 1990s said an overpowering force pulled at him and that he saw anguished faces on the walls.
The most famous story involves Capone himself. Fellow inmates said he screamed at night for “Jimmy” to leave him alone — supposedly James Clark, one of the men killed in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre earlier that year. Capone, the story goes, was haunted by Jimmy for the rest of his life.
Fact or legend?
The prison's history needs no exaggeration: the cells, the hoods and the decades of isolation are all documented, and Capone's cell has been recreated as he kept it. The hauntings rest on witness accounts rather than records, and the tale of Capone and Jimmy comes from gangland folklore, not prison files.
Visiting
Eastern State is a museum open most days of the year, with an audio tour narrated by the actor Steve Buscemi. In autumn it runs a Halloween event after dark. Check easternstate.org for times and tickets.
