Eastern State Penitentiary
Philadelphia, PA
March 2016
My niece lives near this site. I've passed it hundreds of times. People have told me that it's haunted. There are ghost tours around Halloween. But none of that interested me. How creepy could the place be??
But I put it on my list of things to do on my 60/60 Project. Al Capone did time here. Did this place help him repent for his sins? How do I repent for my sins? Do I think enough about repenting? One chilly afternoon in mid-March I went here with a friend from Germany. We wanted to see if this place offered enough to interest a visit from her high school students in the fall. Within just a few minutes of our visit, we found ourselves mesmerized by the place. It was creepy, heavy with a sad history and spellbinding. I wanted to look at every cell no matter how similar they all were. I wanted to see Capone's cell, the synagogue and the barber shop. I wanted to hear every detail from my hand held audio device.
In the late 1800's, this jail was world renown for its position on solitude confinement as a most effective method of repentance. As I as reading ESP's history, I hear Obama's voice as he talked this week about the negative effects of solitary confinement on minors. He just signed an executive order to ban this practice on minors.
How many times in my lifetime will practices, beliefs and actions flipflop as we gain new knowledge and shed old thoughts? What thoughts and ideas do I need to shed?
