Abandoned houses, old prisons, dark mazes: how horror festivals bring empty neighbourhoods to life
Held around Halloween, horror festivals turn abandoned prisons and disused buildings into places of entertainment, livening up neighbourhoods that stay quiet for most of the year. We looked at the stories of popular haunted houses in the US.
When Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia first opened in 1829, it was presented to the press as one of the most innovative prisons in the world. Planned under the leadership of Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush, the prison was built on the assumption that its inmates would be rehabilitated through silence, isolation and religious instruction. Under this system, prisoners spent 23 hours a day alone, and the prison was designed so that they were never allowed to encounter one another. The “isolation” system of the building, which became a model for many of today’s “special type” high-security prisons, was abolished in 1913 on the grounds that the prison had become overcrowded; in 1971 the prison closed altogether.
The first penitentiary in the US has been used as a museum since 1994, and since 1991 it has also hosted a horror festival every year around Halloween.
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