Lower Manhattan’s notorious federal jail is finally closing. The brutalist Metropolitan Correc
Lower Manhattan’s notorious federal jail is finally closing. The brutalist Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, l is the maximum-security federal jail that has seen its share of famous residents including most recently, Jeffrey Epstein. MCC was the final piece of the monumental Civic Center development that included One Police Plaza, Murray Bergtraum High School, 350 Pearl Street, Chatham Towers and Chatham Green. Part of a federal program that commissioned additional jails in Chicago and San Diego of the same name, Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan replaced the former Federal House of Detention at 427 West Street at West 11th Street. According to The New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger, unlike the West Street jail and the Tombs up the block, MCC was supposed to be “the most progressive” and “incorporate the most advanced theories of prison architecture.. each unit is meant to stress human scale. ” The design was heralded for its lack of prison-looking elements including guard towers, barbed wires, chain-linked fences, and large windowless walls, fitting in with the surrounding office buildings. MCC has housed famous federal inmates over the years including drug lord El Chapo, Jeffrey Epstein, Bernie Madoff, John Gotti, terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There have also been escape attempts over the years, the most publicized being in 1981 when a stolen helicopter unsuccessfully attempted to lift an inmate off the rooftop recreational center. Another attempt, this one successful, involved two inmates lowering themselves down from the second-story with an electrical cord. The men remain missing to this day. (Part of our #BrutalNYC project, documenting #brutalist #architecture in NYC. Visit nycurbanism.com.brutalnyc for more) (at Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTNKz5nHUAO/?utm_medium=tumblr -- source link
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