While talking about skyscrapers, we need to look at the Middle East recently. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates seem to be in competition over who will build the biggest mega-construction, and so we have works like The Line, King Khalid International Airport, the massive Jeddah Tower, Burj Khalifa or The Line. The new skyscraper, two kilometers high. Now we need to look at the United States, because they will also be building a very different skyscraper.

It will be a prison that looks like something out of the Judge Dredd universe.

Closing America’s worst prison. Thinking of New York means thinking of skyscrapers, but also thinking of the extreme crime rate of a few years ago. This rate has been decreasing in the last 30 years, but it is still a city with many prisons, detention centers and correctional facilities camouflaged on its streets. But the days of one of the most emblematic (because it looks like it was taken from the ‘Batman’ stories) and the so-called worst prison in New York are numbered.

This is the Rikers Island prison, located between the Bronx and Queens, right next to LaGuardia Airport. Americans don’t like to worry about prisons. Alcatraz is on an island, Rikers Island is the same, and right in front of it is ‘The Boat’, a gigantic prison ship. Rikers Island is known for both violence between inmates and mistreatment by guards; So much so that it was crowned the worst prison in the United States.

Four prisons distributed throughout the city. In 2019, the New York City Council voted to close the Rikers Island jail and replace it with four smaller prisons distributed across different parts of the city. This $8.3 billion restructuring plan will open prisons in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, and the Manhattan prison will be located in Chinatown.

New ‘Graves’. East of Chinatown, in the heart of Manhattan, lies ‘The Tombs’, officially called the ‘Manhattan Detention Complex’. Inaugurated in 1838, it is a building that began as a court and detention center but was used as a municipal prison for a century. The building, which has caused controversy due to corruption cases, overcrowding of prisoners and violent incidents, is also a historical building that we encounter in video games, movies and TV series.

However, it closed in 2021 due to its base being used to build the new mega-prison in New York. ‘Tombs’ has 15 floors, but the new tower is planned to be much taller. In 2022, 29 apartments with a capacity of 800 inmates were mentioned, but 40 apartments with a capacity of 1,000 people are also mentioned. The plan was for this new vertical prison to be built by 2026, but different protests postponed everything until between 2027 and 2028.

The neighbors didn’t like it. How would you feel if there was such a large prison in your neighborhood? These are the Chinatown residents who marched to New York City Hall in 2020 to protest the city’s plans. In these proposals, they argued that Chinatown had a disproportionate share of trials and sentencing.

In the words of the association organizing the demonstration, it was a new chapter in New York using the neighborhood as “a dumping ground for failed incarceration policies, a dumping ground that builds larger and larger prisons and plagues the neighborhood every 40 years.” What concerns residents is that this will impact area businesses and disproportionately increase police presence. Along with the criminal courthouse and another nearby federal prison, “Chinatown will be known as Prison Town,” says Jan Lee, a property owner and founder of a group opposing the development.

The government is responding. The city no longer has an interest in bringing prisons to these areas. The initial program notes that the location of the new Chinatown jail tower would meet a need due to its proximity to courts, social services and inmates’ families. Additionally, this prison will have a safer and more humane approach and will contribute “positively to the character of the neighborhood and surrounding streets.”

Additionally, as part of the plan, New York will invest $391 million in prison districts, including affordable housing, recreation areas, cultural buildings and programs to reduce incarceration. We will see the end of this prison, which needs to start construction as soon as possible if it wants to be ready for its opening in 2027, and we will also see its final height, as there are those who claim that it will be as tall as a statue. your freedom. It’s still something to wonder about.

Image | ajay_suresh

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