News Munchies
Sparking Tours of Prison Museums
Originally Posted
Updated
San Francisco has the most famous prison museum, Alcatraz, but New York might be second on the list. Sing Sing, one of the most notoriously violent prisons in U.S. history, might open up as a tourist attraction.
Located only 30 miles up the Hudson River from Manhattan, this prison still holds some 2300 prisoners. But don’t worry; they will be on the other side of the fence. At least that's the theory.
The town of Ossining, trying to distance its identification from the prison, changed its name from the original Sing Sing. Now it has changed it's mind, wanting to take advantage of the local prison's notoriety, showing off "Old Sparky," one of the first electric chairs, which took the lives of 614 inmates in "The Death House."
Famous Mafia leaders were housed in Sing Sing, as well as bank robber Willie Sutton; convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted in Old Sparky.
Disneyland it ain't.