Masonic Temple & State Penitentiary

We took a tour of the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia. The building is amazing and when it was completed in 1873 was intended to be the centerpiece of the Philadelphia skyline. About the time it was completed the city started construction on City Hall, which wouldn't be completed until 1901 but would dwarf the Masonic Temple in size and hold the record as the tallest building in the world from 1901 to 1908. Still the temple was gorgeous and is a very big structure in it's own right. If you're interested in checking it out they have an online tour you can take at http://www.pagrandlodge.org/tour/mtemple.html

This is another view from inside the Masonic Temple. We saw several beautiful staircases like this one. There seemed to be about 20 meeting rooms like the first picture there, all with a different theme to the room like Egyptian, Greek, etc, and all used for meetings. It was a very interesting tour.Here we are outside of Eastern State Penitentiary. It was completed in 1829 and is considered the world's first true penitentiary. Whatever that means. The architecture focused on solitary confinement, the hope of its designers was that people would turn to God and reform if forced into isolation. Each cell was designed so that a guard could give them food without being seen, and for a brief period each day the prisoners were allowed outside into the small courtyard (about 10' x 10') adjacent to each cell. All this was done without them seeing even the guard. They had human interaction once every two weeks when they were hosed down for their shower.

We saw Al Capone's cell, he was one of the more famous inmates. It was no longer solitary at that point. They determined that the solitary system was causing mental insanity among inmates. By 1913 it was also too crowded to continue the solitary practice as well so they started putting two inmates to a cell. The prison operated almost like a mini city. The odd thing is the prison is really in the middle of a residential area in the city. As the building deteriorated it was eventually closed permanently in 1971.

Now they do tours, movies, and during October it hosts supposedly one of the scariest haunted houses in the country. Amy hasn't wanted to find out though!

This dog killed the cat of the Governor's wife. She wanted revenge so they sentenced him to life in prison. He had a pretty good life living at Eastern, he was adopted as the prison dog and got lots of attention from everyone.

This was another cool place to visit in Philadelphia!

A view down the hall of one of the prison corridors.