{"id":384,"date":"2025-04-08T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/?p=384"},"modified":"2025-05-03T15:09:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T15:09:22","slug":"the-forgotten-history-of-the-womens-house-of-detention-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/08\/the-forgotten-history-of-the-womens-house-of-detention-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The forgotten history of the Women\u2019s House of Detention"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Many NYU students know Greenwich Village as the heart of New York City\u2019s LGBTQ+ community, but might not recognize the role of a local prison in its history. The Jefferson Market Library \u2014\u00a0NYU\u2019s nearest branch of the New York Public Library \u2014 was formerly the site of a prison that confined women and LGBTQ+ people in poor conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Founded in 1932, the Women\u2019s House of Detention on 10 Greenwich Ave. held thousands of prisoners, many of whom were <\/span>LGBTQ+ and working-class women of color<\/span><\/a>, in addition to female activists arrested as political prisoners, including radical Catholic activist Dorothy Day and Black Panther Party members Angela Davis and Afeni Shakur. The prison officially <\/span>closed its doors in 1971<\/span><\/a> due to increasing pressure by the surrounding community against its inhumane conditions, leading to the relocation of its incarcerated population to the then newly constructed Rikers Island facility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the Jefferson Market Garden next to the library aims to honor the site\u2019s history, it does not fully tell the story of the former prison\u2019s history of violence \u2014 where LGBTQ+ women of color and trans masculine people were jailed for simply being LGBTQ+ or engaging in sex work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Jefferson Market Courthouse and the Women’s House of Detention in 1938 (Courtesy of the New York Public Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Jefferson Market Library (Isabel Albors for WSN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Davis \u2014 a Marxist political activist known for her role in the prison abolition movement \u2014 was imprisoned at the House of Detention in 1970 following her <\/span>alleged involvement<\/span><\/a> in the armed seizure of a courthouse by Black Panther Party activists, in which four people died. The same year, Davis, already charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy, was placed on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted fugitives list after an arrest warrant was issued.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Historian Hugh Ryan, who published a <\/span>book about the prison<\/span><\/a> in 2022, aims to educate readers on the LGBTQ+ history of the House of Detention, where many women and LGBTQ+ people were incarcerated not explicitly for their non-normative identity but nonetheless for deviating from gender norms. From <\/span>wearing pants to walking outside alone at night<\/span><\/a>, LGBTQ+ women could be simply arrested for not aligning with traditional gender norms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of these women were arrested for prostitution and disorderly conduct, which usually meant some form of homelessness,\u201d Ryan said in an interview with WSN.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A protestor outside the Women\u2019s House of Detention in 1970 (Courtesy of the Smith College)
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These arrests served as a form of \u201cforced feminization,\u201d according to Ryan \u2014\u00a0a process by which LGBTQ+ women were charged with non-violent crimes, hiding the gender and race-based discrimination that fueled their convictions. Ryan also said that the inhumane living conditions at the House of Detention were largely overlooked in official prison reports, whose records shed light on the stories of its prisoners in a strictly punitive light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost always overcrowded, as all prisons are. There would never have been a report saying when the water went out,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cThe [prison\u2019s] hospital had been ripped out to make dormitory-style rooms. Many of the inmates would complain about their teeth being ripped out by the dentist because the dentist didn’t pay any attention.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jefferson Market Garden and Library (Isabel Albors for WSN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Though Jefferson Market Library has limited materials on the history of the House of Detention, the prison\u2019s legacy\u00a0\u2014 which starkly exposes the role of the criminal legal system in the oppression of LGBTQ+ people \u2014 drives a broader critique of the prison system as a solution to crimes that are actually rooted in the conditions of racism, sexism and classism.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest thing we could do to honor [the prisoners] is to start to tear [the prison industrial complex] apart,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cWe can start talking about its failures, such as a lack of hygiene and proper trials and conviction, and to start to imagine what is beyond that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact Pritheva Zakaria at culture@nyunews.com.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This story The forgotten history of the Women\u2019s House of Detention<\/a> appeared first on Washington Square News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many NYU students know Greenwich Village as the heart of New York City\u2019s LGBTQ+ community, but might not recognize the role of a local prison in its history. The Jefferson Market Library \u2014\u00a0NYU\u2019s nearest branch of the New York Public Library \u2014 was formerly the site of a prison that confined women and LGBTQ+ people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":399,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}