"Brooklyn House of Detention for Men, 275 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn 1, NY" sketch on 1956 DOC annual report Page 34.
HOW BROOKLYN HOUSE OF DETENTION FOR MEN
55 YEARS AGO CAME TO OPEN AS NYC’s 'INTERIM'
CENTRALIZED ADOLESCENT REMAND SHELTER.
'INTERIM' LASTED NEARLY 12 YEARS.

Before becoming NYC Correction Commissioner Dec. 27, 1946 (he served until Dec. 31, 1953), Albert O. Williams, above, had been with NYPD 33 years, rising to Acting Commissioner under Mayor LaGuardia. Mayor O'Dwyer called him out of retirement to head DOC.

Before becoming NYC Correction Commissioner Jan. 1, 1954 (she served until March 30, 1966), Anna M. Kross, above, had been a NYC magistrate for 20 years, chiefly in social and domestic relations courts. The longest serving DOC Commissioner, she headed the agency during all 12 years of Mayor Wagner's administration and stayed on three months at Mayor John V. Lindsay's request until his choice of her successor, George McGrath, could assume his duties.

Before becoming NYC Correction Commissioner March 31, 1966 (he served until Jan. 23, 1972), George F. McGrath , above, had been Massachusetts Correction Commissioner six years. An attorney, he had experience in private practice and public service, particularly in the criminal justice system and law enforcement areas of the law.


Part 2 of 2 Parts: BkHDM & Commissioners Anna M. Kross and George McGrath.

FEBRUARY, 2012 (Continued) --The annual report for 1954 which Kross submitted to Mayor Wagner on Jan. 1, 1955, covered her first full year as commissioner. Her letter of transmittal called attention to that fact:

Images from 1956 DOC annual report Page 42
Above: 1956 annual report Page 42 photo of dayroom fold-away tables. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Below: 1956 annual report Page 42 photo of dayroom without fold-away tables. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

When we took office on January 1, 1954 the problems facing us seemed complex and difficult, but it was only as time went on that the full meaning of the situation became apparent . . . .

The physical facilities of the Department had been permitted to deteriorate to a dangerous stage . . . . there must be . . . provision of adequate and proper facilities for detention and rehabilitation. [1954 DOC annual report digest, Page 3.]

Adolescents a Top Priority with AMK

Two of the five numbered priority goals -- Numbers 2 and 3 -- that her 1954 report listed under “New Program Services” envisioned the agency having new centralized facilities for adolescent inmates:

2. The need of a separate remand shelter for detained adolescents, to obviate the necessity of detaining them in inadequate adult city prisons. and to provide for their diagnostic study. classification and constructive activity while awaiting court action.

3. The need of a new training school for adolescents to be located in the metropolitan area, in place of the separation of adolescent programs between the Reformatory at Hampton Farms. N. Y. and the Penitentiary. [1954 DOC annual report digest, Page 8.]

Images scanned from 1956 DOC annual report Page 43
Above: 1956 annual report Page 43 photo of auditorium/ chapel. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Below: 1956 annual report Page 43 photo of gym. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Included in her 1954 report was a reprint of a three-part New York Times series (Dec. 27-29, 1954) by Russell Porter focused on her efforts to deal with overcrowding in DOC facilities and its adverse impact on the agency’s ability to be also correctional, not just custodial.

He wrote in the December 28th article:

She also has asked the city to provide funds for a new remand shelter for all adolescents from all courts and all boroughs of the city.

Her plan here is to separate all adolescents from the adult detention prisons and their danger of moral contamination and further education in crime.

The remand shelter also would be in an area with sufficient indoor and outdoor space to provide rehabilitation for adolescents from the beginning of their incarceration.

Petty casual offenders and first offenders among adolescents would also be kept separate from teenage criminals and repeaters.

Removal of the adolescents would relieve some of the pressure on the detention prisons where inmates are held to await court action, such as indictment, trial and sentence. Little has been done to solve the overcrowding problem among these prisoners except to pack them in tighter and tighter.

“About all we can do now,” Commissioner Kross has said, “is to make a daily check of the census, and when the overcrowding is bad, send adolescents to Rikers Island. No inmates under 21 years of age are doubled up in cells. But we have to double up adults at Rikers Island to provide a special cell block for adolescents.”

The Commissioner is pressing for completion of the new City Prison, Brooklyn, now under construction and scheduled to open in 1956. It will have a capacity of 817, compared with 465 in the old Raymond Street Jail it will replace. [1954 DOC annual report digest, Pages vi & vii.]

1956 DOC annual report Page 44 kitchen montage.
1956 annual report Page 44 photo montage of kitchen scenes. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.
The reporter’s reference to Kross pushing the BkHDM project to completion comes immediately after his several paragraphs about her seeking a separate adolescent remand shelter for all teen detainees.

But his story (and therefore presumably her comments to him also) stopped short of connecting (a) her goal of opening a centralized adolescent detention center with (b) the Brooklyn facility under construction.

The two -- the BkHDM project and the goal of having citywide teen detainee facility -- also remained unconnected in her 1954 report. The report’s reference to jail’s construction taking place was relatively brief:

NEW INSTITUTION: Scheduled to replace the old Raymond Street Jail is the new City Prison and Remand Shelter now in process of construction. The new facility, estimated to cost $10,848,000, should be completed during the early part of 1956.

MODIFICATION OF PLANS: The letting of contracts and actual construction were well under way when this [administration] took office in January 1954.

Image scanned from 1956 DOC annual report Page 45.
1956 annual report Page 45 photo of Mayor Wagner presenting symbolic key to new jail at BhHDM dedication ceremonies De. 4, 1956. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.
Certain modifications, that still could be effected in the new institution, have now been made by the Department, such as restricting maximum physical security features to selected groups of cases, with consequent economies.

Quarters, originally set aside for a warden's residence, have been designated as office space for borough social service agencies serving prisoners and their families.

A laundry, originally omitted from the plans was restored. [1954 DOC annual report digest, Page 39.]

With regard to the BkHDM project and the goal of a single remand shelter for the city’s adolescent detainees, Kross’ 1955 annual report, submitted to Wagner Jan. 1, 1956, followed in some respects the same pattern as the previous year’s report.

BkHDM, Central Remand Shelter Still Unconnected

AMK again bemoaned the planning that the prior administration had done on the design of the new facility being built to replace the ancient Raymond Street Jail, her contention being that it had neither sufficient inmate housing capacity nor sufficient inmate rehabilitation programs space.

Images from 1957 DOC annual report Page 61
Above: 1957 annual report Page 61 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter library. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Below: 1957 annual report Page 61 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter inmates playing chess. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Once more she noted the project had been too far advanced for her to make any more than a few relatively minor modifications.

Kross again had the annual report reprint a series of articles by a major daily newspaper about the lack of adequate and appropriate facilities and programs for the city’s jailed population, particularly women and adolescents.

This time the publication was the World Telegram & Sun, the bylined writer was Alan Keller, and the five articles ran Feb. 7 through Feb. 11, 1955.

In the last article of the series, Keller noted that a few weeks earlier Mrs. Kross had obtained funding

. . . . from the Board of Estimate for initial planning for the building of a new facility for adolescents.

Later she was given $109,000 from the regular expense budget to hire personnel and initiate better rehabilitation work. [1955 DOC annual report, Page xxii.]

Kross’ 1955 report showed, under Capital Outlay Budget, some $310,000 allocated to “Project C-74 Adolescent Remand Shelters, including sites,” with an overall projected price tag of $9,970,000. The Commissioner explained:

Project C-74: It is planned to build a new Adolescent Remand in the Bronx.

The major portion of land for this Shelter has been acquired and the Department of Public Works has asked this department to submit its recommendations for planning . . . . .

Images from 1957 DOC annual report Page 62
Above: 1957 annual report Page 62 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter medical services. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Below: 1957 annual report Page 61 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter pastoral counseling services. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

This Shelter will provide suitable detention facilities for male adolescents 16 - 21 awaiting action of the courts, and will make it possible to segregate them from adult inmates in our prison system.

At the present time, rehabilitative assistance for young people in detention is inadequate largely because of limitations of physical facilities . . . .

The plan for a remand shelter for young offenders is a major plank in our program for prison rehabilitation and treatment. [1955 DOC annual report, Page 16.]

AMK’s Fascinating
Bifurcated 1956 Report

Kross’ 1956 annual report, submitted to Wagner on Jan. 1, 1957, is a fascinating bifurcated document in the way it treats separately the completion of BkHDM construction and the pending opening of it as the city’s centralized Adolescent Remand Shelter: one section totally compartmentalized from the other.

A person can read the entire 12-page section (Pages 34 through 45) devoted to the completion of its construction, the history of Brooklyn detention facilities that preceded it, a virtual tour of its various floors via text, drawings and photos but find none of the sharp criticisms that Kross had aired in annual reports 1953, 1954 and 1955 about the prior administration’s poor planning of it.

Nor can the reader detect in those dozen pages that the building constructed to be the Brooklyn House of Detention for Men would not open as such.

Images from 1957 DOC annual report Pages 64 & 65
Above: 1957 annual report Page 64 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter dayroom with TV for inmates. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Below: 1957 annual report Page 65 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter drama class. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

But when one turns to the next section of the 1956 report, five pages (46 through 50) devoted to “The Adolescent in Detention,” the 180 degree turn-around emerges full force, complete with a tic-tock daily schedule of morning, afternoon and evening activities for the young inmates, including diagnostic and counseling services.

All 17 pages just mentioned appear as part of this New York Correction History Society (NYCHS) presentation. The reader can peruse them at his or her leisure to review the reasonable and appealing arguments advanced for the turn-around in the new jail’s use: as a teen detention center, not a holding facility for unbailed adult male detainees.

A shorter version of the justification appears on page 52 of the 1956 report under “1957 Departmental Capital Budget Projects:”

Capital Budget Project C-58
Brooklyn House of Detention for Men

The new Brooklyn House of Detention for Men at 275 Atlantic Avenue is the first project to be completed under this ten year plan.

The actual construction of this institution was well under way when this administration took office in January 1954.

It was dedicated on December 4, 1956. and is scheduled to be opened at the beginning of 1957.

Images from 1958 DOC annual report
Above: 1958 annual report photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter staff psychologist administering an IQ test to an inmate. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Below: 1958 annual report photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter inmates taking battery of IQ and personality tests. Click to access full image and original caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

This new detention institution is now in the stage of final completion and initial occupation by our maintenance and operating staff took place on December 17, 1956. Before official occupancy, equipment will be tested, operated and balanced by our personnel who operate and maintain this plaint in the future.

Total Estimated Cost . . . . $10.641.722.75
1957 Capital Budget . . . . . . 50.000.00

The new Bronx Adolescent Remand Shelter (Capital Budget Project C-74), which is still in the formative stage, will not be available for use by this department for several years.

In the interim, in view of the prevailing adolescent problem throughout our various institutions, the department proposes to centralize the rehabilitation activities of the various city detention institutions under one roof at the new Brooklyn House of Detention for Men.

This centralization of rehabilitation activities for adolescents in detention will enable us to make more effective use of our existing professional staff and will permit us to take advantage of the modern facilities 28 day rooms, 2 gymnasiums, a library, study hall, 2 recreation roofs, and an auditorium with chapel accoutrements.

A detailed description of the new Brooklyn House of Detention for Men and an account of the program activities planned there will be found in another section of this report specifically referring to this institution. [1956 DOC annual report, Page 52.]

Kross’ 1957 annual report, submitted to the mayor Jan. 1, 1958, devoted seven pages (59 through 65) to “The Brooklyn House of Detention for Men; Interim Remand Shelter for Adolescents (16-21).” The section began with an NYT aerial photo whose DOC report caption included the information that “it received its first prisoners Jan. 21, 1957.”

That seven-page section from the 1957 annual report is also included in this special NYCHS presentation.

‘Interim’ Period Lasted Nearly a Dozen Years

Images from 1958 & 1959 DOC annual reports.
Above: 1958 annual report Page 15 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter inmates being double-bunked in dayrooms as jail population rose as high as 143 over rated capacity little more than a year after it opened.

Below: 1959 annual report Page 16 photo of BkHDM/ Interim Adolescent Remand Shelter inmates being double-bunked in one of the flats as jail population rose as high as 216 over rated capacity little more than 2 years after it opened.

Click to access full images and original captions. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

AMK cited the overcrowding in arguing for accelerating the building of a larger permanent centralized adolescent facility. But that argument only begs the question whether the overcrowding of BkHDM was not foreseeable when DOC ended the decentralized adolescent remand system previously in place and instead switched BkHDM to serve as an interim centralized teen jail.

The Adolescent Remand Shelter’s “interim” stay at the BkHDM building lasted 11 years and eight months. It ended the weekend of Sept. 20 - 23, 1968, during the administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay.

The story of that ending has been on the NYCHS web site for more than a decade as part of the history of C-76, now known as the Eric M. Taylor Center. Here are excerpts from that web page:

The late 1968 issue of Correction Sidelights, the DOC newsletter, carried a full-page story on the name and mission change that was part of a much larger reshuffling of facility functions and populations . . . . Here are excerpts from the 1968 newsletter story:

4,180 Prisoners Transferred

The largest transfer of prisoners in the City's history occurred over the weekend of September 20 to September 23 [1968] when 4,180 prisoners were transported by prison vans, buses and cars between and among 8 of the 9 major correctional institutions.

No advance announcement of the mass transfer was made for security reasons.

The Commissioner [George F. McGrath] designated the New York City Correctional Institution for Men as the Adolescent Remand Shelter pending the construction of this institution on Rikers Island in approximately three years.

With the unprecedented overcrowding in the detention institutions, the Department felt it expedient to house the adolescent (16 - 21) inmate population all in one central location:

The detention adolescent at the New York City Correctional Institution for Men and the sentenced adolescent at the New York City Reformatory, both on Rikers Island.

The adult Brooklyn detention cases, which had been scattered throughout the City of New York creating a departmental transportation problem, were returned to the Brooklyn House of Detention for Men in the County of original jurisdiction of their cases.

The scattering of these prisoners throughout the City in the past 11 years has occasioned much complaint from visiting relatives and friends, attorneys and the courts.

Another distinctive advantage is the fact that the Rikers Island institution is much better suited for the custody, care and rehabilitation of the adolescent accused of crime, than is the Brooklyn House of Detention for Men.

Image from 1958 DOC annual report Page 18
The story on Page 18 of the 1958 DOC annual report that accompanied the photo from which the above image is derived -- showing AMK pinning a warden shield on William R. Doherty as his wife and DOC officials look on -- opens some intriguing lines of inquiry.

The 1958 annual report story, headlined "New Warden Appointed," stated AMK swore in Doherty as "Warden of the New Brooklyn House of Detention for Men" on August 8, 1958. That statement runs counter to the previous year's annual report roll of DOC institutions and their wardens. On Page 6 of the 1957 annual report, that roll listed Doherty as Warden of the Brooklyn House of Detention for Men -- not Acting Warden," as Joseph V. Joyce was identified with respect to the Branch Brooklyn House of Detention for Men.

The ancient Raymond Street Jail's official designation as Brooklyn's HDM had passed to the new facility; old prison then became the "Branch." Note that the institutions and wardens list page immediately follows Page 5 on which AMK's Jan. 1, 1958 letter of transmittal to Mayor Wagner was reprinted. So, the 1957 annual report indicates that at least as early as Jan. 1, 1958 Doherty appears to have been regarded as warden of the new BkHDM. Additionally, other evidence suggests he functioned in that capacity from when it opened, and even from before then.

On Aug. 15, 1956, the New York Times ran a four-photo picture spread under the headline "Replacement for Brooklyn's Old Raymond Street Jail Is 90 Per Cent Complete" and an 1-column story headlined "New Jail to Open in Brooklyn Soon" by veteran reporter Emmanuel Perlmutter. The caption for one of the four photos identified as "Warden William R. Doherty" one of the two men with whom AMK was shown conferring in the picture. The other was identified as Dr. Francis DeBilo, DOC's director of adolescents guidance.

The last sentence in Perlmutter's story on AMK's inspection of the 90% complete facility declared, "She was accompanied on her tour by William R. Doherty, who will be the warden, and Dr. Francis DeBilo, director of the adolescent guidance program for the Department of Correction."

The caption and story references to the DOC teen guidance director accompanying the Commissioner at the soon-to-be-opened facility suggests to this researcher, having the advantage of hindsight, that AMK was thinking then of making it an all-adolescent remand center, if she hadn't already made the decision in her mind to go that route.

Click above photo to access larger image with original story and caption. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

It was not designed to provide programs for an adolescent detention population. . . .

What becomes readily apparent from this very cursory study of documents associated with the BkHDM project is that different municipal administrations and different DOC commissioners often revise and even reverse facility use plans of their predecessors as they devise different responses to much the same challenges that continue from one year to the next, one decade to the next.

A passing observer might argue that Commissioner McGrath’s restoration of BkHDM to its originally intended mission and his centralizing adolescent detention in one of Rikers’ existing facilities while a permanent adolescent detention center was being built on the island made more sense than Kross’ scattering Brooklyn’s adult male detainees throughout DOC’s other facilities around the city.

However, such an observation would reflect overlooking a few important facts.

The Rikers facility into which McGrath moved the teen inmates from the Brooklyn House did not exist when Kross made her decision in 1956.

But AMK did oversee its construction to completion in the early 1960s. So she did not have as many options available to her as her successor had available to him 11 years and eight months later.

From a DOC photo of 1968 BkHDM ribbon-cutting.
Above: Easily recognized by old-time Brooklyn Dodger fans and long-time Brooklynites, Borough President Abe Stark (who had a famous sign at Ebbets Field) cuts a ceremonial ribbon in this DOC photo.

Back of picture states the date and place -- "Brooklyn HDM 12-2-68" -- but not the occasion for the ceremony. Nor has Google searches found the answer. Note Mayor Lindsay's Correction Commissioner George McGrath far left. Coming little more than two months after McGrath moved the teen inmates to Rikers, the ribbon cutting may have marked the completion of renovations returning the jail to its intended role as the borough's jail for adult males.

Click to access larger image. Once accessed, use "+" option to enlarge. Use "back" button to return.

Additionally, unlike McGrath she did not have a bridge to Rikers that would facilitate many matters related to centralizing adolescent detention on the island.

But as with C-76, she oversaw construction of the bridge to virtual completion. In a sense, Kross made possible the move McGrath made.

Finally, AMK set a priority on adolescent detainees, especially first offenders.

She saw them as representing society’s best chance for nipping lives of crime at their budding and its best hope of instead redirecting youth along constructive channels.

Without apology, she gave adolescents preference in planning the uses to which she put the facilities, programs and services at her command.

Thomas C. McCarthy
www.correctionhistory.org webmaster*

End of Part 2 of 2 Parts. Click here to return to Part 1.

1956 DOC annual report ---- BkHDM section Pages 34 - 45; The Adolescents in Detention section Pages 46 - 50.
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Above & below: Click number to access PDF image of corresponding full page. Most 144 dpi, a few 96 DPI.

1957 DOC annual report ---- The Brooklyn House of Detention for Men/Interim Remand Shelter for Adolescents section Pages 59 - 65.
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To access the 14-page essay's text-only PDF version (14.9 Mb), click here.


*For purposes of identification only. The historical perspectives and interpretations posed, however tentatively offered in this analysis of the written record, are solely the responsibility of its author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any correctional colleagues, current or former, nor of any correctional group or agency with which he is or has been associated.

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