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| Penn. Prison Has Had Nine Lives |
| By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
| Published: 06/04/2003 |
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The State Correctional Institution Pittsburgh, a place of many aliases that has been home to tens of thousands of the state's worst criminals, has rarely known peace, inside the walls or out. The prison has been targeted for closure on and off since 1911, when crowded, dirty conditions contributed to a tuberculosis outbreak among inmates. Gov. John Tener signed a bill 92 years ago authorizing replacement of the Pittsburgh prison by the new Rockview penitentiary in central Pennsylvania. For reasons not explained, the Pittsburgh institution lived on. It also outlasted a prison reform committee appointed by Gov. Edward Martin in 1944. That group said the Pittsburgh prison bordered on obsolete and should be closed once World War II was over. The war ended in August 1945, but the prison was modernized and remained in operation. More closure plans for SCI Pittsburgh were floated in 1999 and again this week. State corrections administrators say new prisons opening in Fayette and Forest counties can be operated more cheaply than SCI Pittsburgh, whose original wing was opened in 1882. In the beginning, the Pittsburgh prison was flayed by critics as a Taj Mahal for lawbreakers. Its detractors called the place 'pretentious' and complained that it was the most costly lockup ever built in the United States. The penitentiary cost $2 million, which covered the cost of 40-foot walls, running water and electric lights. No other prison in the country had such conveniences. Western Penitentiary was built not only to be stout, but to treat inmates more humanely than had been the custom in Pittsburgh. It replaced a dank, foreboding prison on the North Side, where the National Aviary now keeps exotic birds, such as Bartlett's Bleeding Heart Dove. Though the physical plant of the Pittsburgh prison was a cut above the rest, its waterfront location caused problems from the start. The Ohio River often left its banks to douse the yard. No case was worse than the flood of 1936, when prison officers had to use rowboats to navigate the cellblocks. Water inside the walls rose to almost 15 feet, forcing the evacuation of inmates to higher ground. Not every disaster in the prison was a natural one. On Feb. 11, 1924, inmates who had smuggled in dynamite tried to break free by blowing a hole in the south wall. The prison's sturdy construction withstood the blast, but inmates executed two corrections officers. Shot dead were Deputy Warden John Pieper and Yard Sgt. John T. Coax. They were the first of four prison employees to die at the hands of inmates. Officer Clifford Grogan was knifed to death on Nov. 12, 1965, and Capt. Walter Peterson was tortured and slashed by three prisoners on Dec. 10, 1973. Grogan had finished his shift and left the prison, only to realize he had forgotten his jacket. When he went back for it, he found an inmate armed with a knife attacking his lieutenant. Grogan intervened and saved the other officer's life. Grogan was not as fortunate. Stabbed seven times, he died that day. Peterson, who was black, was a pioneer in a prison that had hired few ethnic minorities until the 1960s. Some called him the Jackie Robinson of the corrections system. He died in an attack by three white inmates, who targeted him for one reason only -- the color of his skin. The trio had been confined to the prison's 'hole' for their horrific behavior inside the walls. They plotted to lure a black officer into a trap, then kill him. The most notorious of these inmates was murderer Stanley Hoss. He shouted racial slurs as he and his accomplices attacked Peterson with shards of glass and a broken fluorescent lighting tube. Peterson's funeral in his hometown of Clairton brought a crowd that filled the streets. His portrait and those of the other fallen officers hangs on a wall of valor at the prison. If the prison had its share of heroes on staff, it also had villains. Survivors of the officers killed in 1924 still believe an officer smitten by an inmate's girlfriend allowed dynamite and weapons to be smuggled inside. There is no doubt that an officer in 1983 supplied derringers to two inmates. The pistols were turned on two other prison officers, who were held hostage for six days before their attackers finally gave up. Prison employee Roy H. Layne was convicted in 1985 of supplying the derringers to prisoners he was supposed to be guarding. Across the years, the prison has been called Woods Run, Riverfront and less printable nicknames. It housed women in a segregated unit for its first 40 or so years. Since its inception, it has incarcerated the worst of men and probably also held some innocents. The site of violence, despair and occasional valor, the prison is a Pittsburgh institution in more ways than one. |
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