Shop Amazon

Shop Amazon

Eastern State Penitentiary

---

• Address: 21st St and Fairmount Ave

• Hours: 10:00am to 5:00pm Daily
• Phone: (215) 236-3300

• Travel Genus: Sight , Visit
• Sight Category: Museum
• Activity Category: Tour

• Available for private functions

• As Noted In: 1001 Historic Sites You Must See Before You Die, Quintessence Editions
• As Noted In: National Register of Historic Places, US National Park Service
• As Noted In: US National Historic Landmark, US National Park Service

Looking down these dreary passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful. Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver's shuttle, or shoemaker's last, but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired.... He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in the slow round of years.... Charles Dickens