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-We consider Eastern State America's most historic prison.
It was opened in 1829,
so we see copies of Eastern State all over the globe,
making this arguably history's most influential prison.
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I'd say when I first started here
that most people were here for the dark-tourism side of things,
to hear about escapes and Al Capone
and, you know, Silver Era gangsters -- things like that.
But I've really seen a change in our visitors,
especially in the last five years.
I'd say there's a lot of people coming here
to learn about criminal-justice reform, social justice,
to hold discussions and dialogues
about really the shortcomings of our criminal-justice system.
So we're really trying, again,
to connect the past with the present here
and learn something from the legacy
of America's most historic prison.
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I would define dark tourism as a site or institution
whose history or content or subject matter
has to do with something morbid -- pain, suffering,
trauma, death, dying -- these kinds of things.
Eastern State's often known
as the world's first true penitentiary,
and what that means
is a building designed to inspire regret.
And a big part of how the prison officials did that
was, again, through architecture.
The outside of the building resembles a Gothic castle.
It's scary, it's intimidating,
and it's what we would call a deterrent.
But on the inside, visitors to Eastern State
are often surprised to see that the cell blocks
resemble a cathedral or a church.
Their idea was that if a prison looked like a cathedral
or a church, people would be more likely to think about
what they had done wrong, to reflect,
and to seek penitence, or true remorse.
That becomes the root of the word "penitentiary."
People are really fascinated in penitentiaries.
Alcatraz is one of the most visited national parks
in the National Park Service.
I think that's partially because despite the size
of the American prison system, the scope of mass incarceration,
most Americans will never go inside of a prison,
active or historic.
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We really go out of our way
to engage our visitors in a dialogue
and ask them to examine their relationship
to the criminal-justice system
and really just spark a conversation
that we hope continues
after the museum-exhibit visit is done.
We have an annual haunted-house fundraiser
that goes through the prison called Terror Behind the Walls,
and it's one of the biggest haunted houses
in the United States,
one of the highest-rated haunted houses in the country.
And it pays our bills, really.
So we use it to stabilize this National Historic Landmark,
to fund daytime public programming.
-About 66% of the operating budget for the historic site
comes from Terror Behind the Walls, the event.
So it's amazing that what we do kind of contributes
to maintaining this beautiful space, historic space.
-We have about an hour from our daytime to nighttime.
We have design team
that basically we turn off historic lights,
flip the switch on for the haunted-house lights,
have the fog machines going, music going.
It's a quick process.
We have 300 staff every night,
so we have them come in in about 15-minute intervals
to get into costume and makeup.
Our makeup team -- We have 26 makeup artists per night
that transform close to 300 actors
in about two and a half hours, three hours.
-We do our best to keep Terror Behind the Walls
from impacting the daytime museum experience
as much as possible.
So a lot of it does take place in parts of the building
that daytime visitors don't see.
But sometimes that's not possible.
At points, it does cross over through the central rotunda
and some of the cell blocks
on the eastern half of the building.
I think a lot of people come here because of its reputation
as a site of paranormal activity.
That's awesome, and we encourage people to come
for whatever their interests are.
I would say that just our mission
is really about hosting a dialogue
about these critical issues
concerning our criminal-justice system.
There's more to do there. There's more work to do there.
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