What lies below the surface of Sing Sing?

Sing Sing Correctional Facility was designed to be as uncomfortable as possible. A maximum security prison, it was built in 1828 so has had plenty of time to absorb all kinds of nasty energy from the nasty inmates and their nasty treatment by nasty guards. Prisoners who were ‘sent up the river’ worked in complete silence imposed by brutal whippings and beatings in the quarries which built Sing Sing, then continued to work to turn a profit for the state. After strict, successful beginnings the jail fell into disorder during the 1920’s and conditions worsened with punishments becoming more sinister, freezing showers, solitary confinement and violent beatings became the norm. Sing Sing also dolled out the worst punishment of all, the electric chair.

Still a functioning prison there are only mummers of hauntings, it’s the kind of thing that prisoners are reluctant to report because of the connotations of being chicken, but there are stories about unexplainably chilly rooms, the smell of rot and soft lowing noises coming from the older sections of the jail near where death row was located. There have also been several reported major electrical faults which to me suggest something is not right. This isn’t a place you can visit unless you’re invited but I have been and it has a definite air of unpleasantness that goes beyond what we know about the places horrid history.

Sing Sing was built on top of a smaller jail constructed on 1825, and some of there are plans to turn some of these earlier cells into a museum (?), there is also an inmates cemetery housing notables like electrocuted cannibal and serial killer Albert Fish, prime candidate to leave a residual nastiness on the grounds. As is you can see the electric chair and other choice relicts at a small museum around the corner which give off a surprisingly placid vibration considering their use, but I think it is the humble room they are kept in, not somewhere apt to be haunted compared to the building itself. I think considering the violence and history of Sing Sing there is a lot more to it than what we have seen so far.

3 / 5 Review by expert member Jon Falkes

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 Photo by flickr user pingnews.com

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