For the First Time, Visitors Can Now Explore Eastern State Penitentiary's Death Row

By Peter Crimmins | WHYY

Published May 14, 2022 at 12:09 AM EDT

The original bars of Cell Block 15 were stolen after Eastern State Penitentiary was abandoned in the 1970s. As part of Menjivar’s art installation, he replaced the missing bars with clear acrylic ones, to create a “diagram” of solitary confinement.

For the first time since Eastern State Penitentiary opened as a historic prison museum in 1998, visitors can go into death row. WHYY's Peter Crimmins reports the old Cell Block 15 is outfitted with speakers that play back a piece of music composed on a different death row.

(Original air-date: 5/13/22)

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Peter Crimmins | WHYY

WHYY’s arts and culture reporter Peter Crimmins first became interested in radio in the fourth grade, when he smuggled a contraband crystal-diode radio into the Boy Scout summer camp. Subsequent radio projects were more successful.

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