Sing Sing

Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2004.

The name "Sing Sing" was derived from the Sintsink Indian tribe from whom the land was purchased in 1685, and was formerly the name of the village. In 1970, the prison's name was changed to the Ossining Correctional Facility, but it reverted to its original name in 1985. There are plans to convert the original 1825 cell block into a period museum.

The prison property is bisected by the Metro-North Railroad's four-track Hudson Line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_Sing

Notable inmates

• Frank Abbandando and Harry Maione, hitmen and members of Murder, Inc., both executed in 1942.
• George Appo, 19th-century pickpocket and con artist.
• Charles Becker, NYPD Lieutenant convicted for the murder of Herman Rosenthal and executed at Sing Sing on July 30, 1915.
• Maria Barbella, the second woman sentenced to death by electric chair. The sentence was later overruled and Barbella was set free.
• Robert Bierenbaum, convicted in October 2000 of having murdered his estranged wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum, 15 years earlier.
• Louis Buchalter, American mobster and head of Murder, Inc. who served 18 months at Sing Sing for grand larceny. On January 22, 1920, he returned to Sing Sing on a 30 month sentence for attempted burglary. Buchalter was released on March 16, 1922. He was later executed for murder in 1944.
• Elmer "Trigger" Burke, hitman, executed in 1958.
• Louis Capone and Emanuel Weiss, members of Murder, Inc., both executed in 1944.
• Frank Cirofici, Harry Horowitz, Jacob Seidenshner, and Louis Rosenberg, accomplices of Charles Becker, were all executed in 1914.
• Charles Chapin, editor of New York Evening World, popularly known as the "Rose Man of Sing Sing".
• Mary Frances Creighton, suspected serial killer, executed, along with Everett Applegate, in 1936.
• Monk Eastman, New York gangster and leader of the Eastman Gang, was sentenced to 10 years at Sing Sing in 1904.
• Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, so-called Lonely Heart Killers, were both executed in 1951.
• Albert Fish, early-20th century American serial killer, child rapist, and cannibal, executed in 1936.
• Paul Geidel, formerly, the longest-serving prison inmate in the United States whose sentence ended with his parole, who served 68 years and 296 days in various New York state prisons.
• Martin Goldstein and Harry Strauss, hitmen and members of Murder, Inc., were both executed in 1941.
• Mary Jones, a 19th-century transgender prostitute who was a center of media attention for coming to court wearing feminine attire.
• Leroy Keith, serial killer, executed in 1959.
• Fritz Julius Kuhn, German former leader of the German American Bund, incarcerated at Sing Sing various times between 1939-1945 and deported to Germany.
• Angelo LaMarca, convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Peter Weinberger, executed in 1958.
• James Larkin, political activist and union leader sentenced to five to ten years in Sing Sing prison for "criminal anarchy" in 1919.
• Eddie Lee Mays, executed in 1963, became the last person executed in New York.
• George C. Parker, infamous con man known for "selling" the Brooklyn Bridge.
• John Roche, serial killer and rapist, executed in 1956.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in 1953 for conspiring to pass secrets of the American atomic bomb project to the Soviet Union during World War II.
• Norman Roye, serial killer and rapist, executed in 1956.
• Hans Schmidt (priest), executed in 1916, was the only Roman Catholic priest executed in the United States.
• Tony Sirico, actor known for his role as Paulie Gaultieri on the critically acclaimed television series The Sopranos, convicted of felony weapons possession and served 20 months of his four-year sentence at Sing Sing.
• Ruth Snyder, executed along with Henry Judd Gray in 1928, Snyder's execution was illegally photographed.
• Willie Sutton, career criminal who escaped December 11, 1932.
• Joseph Valachi, member of the American Mafia, served his first prison sentence (of approximately one year) at Sing Sing before he was 20 years old.
• Jon-Adrian Velazquez, serving a 25 years to life sentence after murder conviction, released in 2021.
• Ferdinand Ward, Gilded Age swindler who ran a New York City investment firm with Ulysses S. Grant Jr., son of former President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant, revealed to be a Ponzi scheme that bankrupted the Grant family in 1884.
• Richard Whitney served a sentence for embezzlement at Sing Sing from 1938 until 1941.
• Frederick Charles Wood, serial killer, executed in 1963.