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Halloween Nights is an immersive experience featuring FIVE thrilling haunted houses PLUS... historic tours. themed bars and lounges. live performances. and many more surprises. ...all within the walls of a real, abandoned 10-acre prison. View All Attractions.
Sep 23, 2021 · The 19th-century prison's annual haunted house, famous for scaring visitors with monsters and mayhem, is no more. Now, it offers a beer garden, live performances, and some \"non-scary\" exhibits and attractions.
- Victor Fiorillo
- Crime & Punishment
- Designed For ‘All-Seeing’ Surveillance
- The “Who’s Who” of Eastern State
- Closing & Abandonment
- Remaking A Place of Punishment
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
The Eastern State Penitentiary was originally constructed as a radical departure from other prisons of its time. Initially imagined by the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, the first prison reform group in the world, it pioneered a system of solitary confinement. The “separate system,” was meant to reform rather t...
Eastern State pioneered a distinctive radial plan. The architectural design resembles a wagon wheel from above, with a central rotunda and cell blocks radiating outward like spokes. In this system, one “all-seeing” guard standing in the center could monitor every corridor. The panoptic design, created by architect John Haviland, set the standard fo...
During its operational years as a prison (1829-1971), the penitentiary was home to several infamous inmates. Its most well-known prisoner was Al Capone, America’s most famous mobster, who was sentenced to eight months at Eastern State from 1929-1930. His cell in the prison is still on display and is said to have had fine furniture, oriental rugs, a...
In 1970, after multiple riots, a breakdown of the “separate system,” and thousands more prisoners than the penitentiary had ever been constructed to handle, Eastern State closed its doors. By that time, the federal government had designated Eastern State Penitentiary a national historic landmark that could not be demolished. For the next fifteen ye...
Mayor Frank Rizzo had, in 1974, suggested demolishing the penitentiary and creating a criminal justice center in its place. The city didn’t do that. Ten years later, a local landscape architecture firm approached redevelopment officials with a bid to turn the cell blocks into 238 luxury apartments. The city didn’t do that, either. It was in 1987 th...
Learn how the prison that inspired Terror Behind the Walls became a historic landmark and a museum. Explore its radical design, infamous inmates, and transformation from solitary confinement to haunted house.
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Sep 21, 2021 · Gargoyle Gardens is part of Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary. This year’s event features all ten acres of the historic prison and fifteen attractions and opens on September 24, 2021.
Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary is open select nights from September 24 through November 13, 2021. Ticket prices start at $34 and vary by night. Tickets are on sale now at HalloweenNights.org.
Sep 21, 2022 · "Halloween Nights features Hollywood quality sets, props, special effects, makeup, and more than 200 talented performers each night, all within the walls of a real abandoned 10-acre prison," says ...
Sep 22, 2023 · Philly's Premier Halloween Attraction Returns This Fall to Eastern State Penitentiary. September 22 - November 11, 2023. Halloween Nights offers five haunted houses, themed bars, live performances and more... SHARE. Halloween Nights is Philly's premier haunted house — and one of the biggest and best Halloween attractions in the country.
