Tombs Prison Uprising (1970)

Mon Aug 10, 1970

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Image: McGrath, the Press and Prisoners. NY Daily News, October 1970. [gothamcenter.org]

On this day in 1970, more than 900 inmates at Tombs Prison in Manhattan, New York City took over the prison after multiple warnings about falling budgets, aging facilities, and rising prison populations were ignored by the city.

The situation was so dire that union correctional officers had initiated an informational picket of City Hall to protest the living conditions. Overcrowding was so severe that more than 2,000 people were being held in space meant for less than a 1,000.

On August 10th, 1970, prisoners seized control of the entire ninth floor of the facility, taking several officers hostage for eight hours, until state officials agreed to hear prisoner grievances and take no punitive action against the rioters.

Despite that promise, Mayor John Lindsay had the leaders behind the action shipped upstate to the state’s Attica Correctional Facility, possibly contributing to the Attica Prison riot about a year later.

The August uprising preceded another rebellion in Tombs Prison in October later that year. Inmates again seized staff as hostages and made demands to improve their living conditions, such as more education, lower bail, and an “inmate council” to mediate prisoner complaints.

After the October uprising, NYC Commissioner of Correction George McGrath fired two black guards at the Tombs, both of whom had reported abuse of inmates by other guards and expressed sympathy for the prisoners’ cause.

Following the August uprising, the New York City Legal Aid Society filed a class action suit on behalf of pre-trial detainees held in the Tombs. The city decided to close the facility on December 20th, 1974 after years of litigation and a federal judge declaring that the prison’s conditions were bad enough to be considered unconstitutional.