$500,000 State Grant to Fund Sing Sing Museum

OSSINING, NY — $500,000 in state grants will help build the Sing Sing Prison Museum in Ossining.

The money is part of a new round of funding awarded through New York's Regional Economic Development Council initiative, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday.

"The Sing Sing Historic Prison Museum will build a first-rate educational and historical museum at the site of the existing operating correctional facility, using the 1936 Prison Power House to house the museum, with access to the original 1825 Cellblock," state officials said in the announcement.

Sing Sing Prison and the village, originally also known as Sing Sing, gained worldwide recognition after the prison was written about in 1835, in Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The non-fictional account of the French nobleman's visit to the U.S. sought to explain to his countrymen what he believed was the essence of the young nation. That was 10 years after the prison was built, using prisoner labor to excavate marble from the quarry in Sparta. Today, Sing Sing still operates as a maximum-security prison with a medium security section, holding around 1,700 inmates.

Friends of the Sing Sing Historic Prison Museum is the non-profit established to raise funds for the museum. They say on their Facebook page:

It will display, for the most part, the Sing Sing story unfolded over time. Chronological organization will help visitors connect what for many may be a very unfamiliar part of American history to the more commonly known succession of American events and ideas. As visitors learn how America, as a new nation with its own identity to establish, was compelled to – and continues to –grapple with ideas of crime and punishment – they will also learn how central this history is to the understanding of our culture. An exhibit of the 1825 Cellblock will be recreated in the taller section of the Power House.

Want to learn more now about the historic prison? The Ossining Urban Park Visitors Center has a small but excellent life-size exhibit on Sing Sing Prison at the Joseph G. Caputo Community Center, 95 Broadway, Ossining. Free admission. Check the hours by calling (914) 941-3189.

“Through the Regional Economic Development Councils, we have replaced the ‘one-size fits all’ approach to economic growth with a ‘ground-up’ strategy that focuses on cooperation and investing in regional assets to generate opportunity,” Cuomo said in his announcement. “By bringing together ideas from local government and community leaders with state resources, we are giving these councils the tools to create jobs and drive economic activity in their communities for generations to come. I congratulate the Regional Councils on their awards, and look forward to continuing to work together to build a stronger New York for all.”