* 1853 illustrated newspaper engraving BLACKWELL's Penitentiary NEW YORK Rikers

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Please visit our EBAY STORE at the link directly below for HUNDREDS of HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS on sale or at auction: /Steve-Goldman-HISTORICAL-NEWSPAPERS_W0QQsspagenameZL2222QQtZkm SEE PHOTO----- COMPLETE ORIGINAL illustrated newspaper, Gleasons Pictorial (Boston, MA) dated May 28, 1853. The front cover of this issue has a half page engraving titled: " View of the Penitentiary, At Blackwell's Island, New York Harbor ". There is also descriptive text above the engraving. In addition, inside the issue is a half-page engraving titled: "View of the Towns of Amesbury and Salisbury, Massachusetts .". Descriptive text is above the engraving. See photo. Many other engravings throughout the issue. Before Rikers Island became Correction's chief island base, Blackwell's Island filled that role. Blackwell's was the name that for nearly two centuries identified what is now known as Roosevelt Island. Gov. Van Twiller reported obtaining it for New Amsterdam from native tribal leaders in 1637. Then the Dutch settlers put their pigs to pasture there, generating its early Colonial name of Hog Island. In 1652, a man named Flyn acquired the island but 16 years later a British military captain, John Manning, bought it. Unhappily for him, he presided over the surrender and brief return of the city to Dutch rule in 1673. For this, his sword was later symbolically broken in a City Hall ceremony of disgrace. Afterwards, Manning retired to his island refuge. His stepdaughter married Robert Blackwell who took title to it in 1717. New York City acquired the island on July 19, 1828, through a foreclosure -- later ruled to have been illegal. Total final price: $52,500. In 1832, the main building of the Blackwell's Penitentiary was erected. In 1848 the Bellevue complex was divided, one reason being the intent to move all its inmates to Blackwell's. A decade later, the north wing was added to Blackwell's Penitentiary. The complete facility housed nearly a thousand inmates, most serving misdemeanor sentences but all were required to perform some daily labor, the tasks varying according to inmate skills and strengths. The Blackwell's Workhouse was built in 1852 to replace a century-old similar facility at Bellevue. Containing 221 cells arranged in tiers along the three-story walls of granite, the building functioned as an institution for punishment of petty violators, many of whom were classified as habitual "drunks and disorderlies," including several who virtually became permanent residents even though the usual stays were counted in days. The Penitentiary stood 600 feet long with a projecting wing on the north side. The main building was constructed with gray stone taken from island quarries. It rose four stories high in a castle-like design and had 800 cells in four tiers back-to-back in the center of the structure. Scandals in the early 1900s, involving charges of inmate overcrowding, drug-dealing, and favoritism, prompted surface "reforms," including a change made by Aldermen on April 12, 1921, to a more pleasant-sounding name: Welfare Island. Nevertheless, the Penitentiary remained in place even though the language of the law creating DOC clearly had sought eventual removal of inmates from Blackwell's to Rikers and Hart Islands. That transfer didn't happen in earnest until scandals in the 1930s led to real reform during the administration of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. In January 1934, LaGuardia's reform Correction Commissioner, Austin H. MacCormick, led a raid on the Welfare Island penitentiary to expose conditions. This brought about the removal of all inmates to Rikers Island, where new facilities were just being completed. Welfare Island was turned over exclusively to the care of the aged and the ill. Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion was one of America's foremost illustrated newspaper. It covered all aspects of life both here and abroad. The paper began publication in 1851. As stated by Gleason's: ...the object o... read more

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