Talk:Eastern State Penitentiary

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Philadelphia
Philadelphia Portal
This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Philadelphia, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopedic coverage and content of articles relating to Philadelphia, its people, history, accomplishments and other topics. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.
This article is also supported by WikiProject Pennsylvania.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

This article is within the scope of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of listings on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale.

Contents

[edit] Merge Proposal

Should the Terror Behind the Walls article be incorporated into this? -Midnightdreary 15:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Considering a main source of income for renovations, and a main motivation for visiting ESP is the TBTW exhibit, I think it should be moved. Obviously, it shouldn't be placed in the 'history' section of the page, but as far as modern-day ESP is concerned, it's quite a prominent feature. Oh, and I added the official merge thingy. Sab (talk) 14:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

As a side, not encyclopedic, note... East State Penitentiary was the filming location for A Clockwork Orange's prison scenes, (and a Tina Turner video as well as a Dead Milkmens's video)Knowmoore —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigmacd24 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Panopticon?

Not sure why there was an October revision removing the panopticon blurb. It may not have been a true panopticon, but it was originally designed that way. Thoughts?? Midnightdreary 22:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

ESP is not a panopticon, according to a large poster entitled "Panopticons" within the ESP, ESP was not constructed as such. ESP embodies more of a religious penitence view, favoring solitary cells as opposed to a large central viewing section (of which there is none). I can provide a picture if need be. Sab (talk) 14:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Been there quite a few times, and I seem to remember the central room quite well. And I also seem to remember the audio tour saying, "Eastern State was built as a panopticon..." Granted, the design changed as they were going along. But, if there's something that specifically says it wasn't, I must not be remembering correctly. I blame Steve Buscemi. :) --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Here's the picture, as taken from the prison. Mainly, I think you need to have a central tower which watches all the cells directly -- that's the big characteristic (at least I believe so). Sab (talk) 16:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Can't argue with that! By the way, why didn't you upload these images to Wikimedia Commons? They could have been part of the image gallery that's linked from the Commons box at the bottom. As an aside, I don't think the image gallery is needed if we have the Commons box. Along those lines, any reason why you chose to just use your own images rather than the ones that were already here? No offense! ;) --Midnightdreary (talk) 17:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Heh, none taken! Here's my thinking: First - all the images are in the commons, including the one in the infobox (apparently there's a bug in importing commons pictures using the national historic template thingy, which is why I duplicated it). Second - I think the gallery function can be used in conjunction with commons if it works with the article. Perhaps now, it doesn't work too well, however, I believe a section on architecture and its relationship to the philosophy of the penitentiary. And finally - I don't want to seem like I'm promoting my own pictures, however, there are some advantages :) I think the main picture should be of the exterior of the building, as it seems to make more logical sense. The one that's there is a great shot, I think it should be moved over to commons (except for its iffy-licensing issue). For Mr. Capone's cell, the picture there was kind of small and a bit out of focus. :( Either way, I'll leave it to the masses to pic their favorites. ;) Sab (talk) 20:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough! I look forward to seeing this article expand further, especially with lots of referencing. It's a great piece of history and architecture! And it's great to see someone putting work into it! --Midnightdreary (talk) 20:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The "Ghost" At Eastern State

Just wondering, is it allowed to add a section in this article about "Ghost Entity" found by Ghost Hunters in Eastern state? Tu-49 13:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to have an entire section dedicated to one show. Maybe if there were several discussions or investigations into hauntings at ESP there could be a section on that and Ghost Hunters could be one part of it. But just cuz it's on TV doesn't mean it's true (or important). Any other thoughts? --Midnightdreary 14:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm seems like a bad idea now, but what if we added a picture of the "alledged" ententy, first on the talk pages to see what people think. If it does well we'll put it on the articel, thats my idea at least Tu-49 18:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 03:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)