{"id":1303,"date":"2011-10-27T11:09:57","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T15:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=1303"},"modified":"2011-10-29T14:04:39","modified_gmt":"2011-10-29T18:04:39","slug":"philadelphias-scariest-halloween-is-yet-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2011\/10\/philadelphias-scariest-halloween-is-yet-to-come\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia\u2019s Scariest Halloween Is Yet To Come"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\"Purchase <\/a> \"View <\/a>
\nEastern State Penitentiary, passage connecting cellblock 4 and the central hub,
\nbefore stabilization, July 22, 2002. Photograph by Dick Gouldey.<\/span><\/div>\n

\nIt used to be Halloween was for kids: all fun and screams. Now it\u2019s into the serious stuff of big business. Halloween\u2019s about the bottom line. And at historic sites, it\u2019s also about another line, the one that used to be a firewall between non-profit organizations and for-profit activity. In recent times, that <\/em>line has gotten very squiggly.<\/p>\n

Many historic sites subscribe to the principle that if it\u2019s October, it\u2019s OK to cross that line. Come November, it\u2019s OK to cross back again\u2014just in time to send out those end-of-the year, tax-deductable gift appeals that stuff your mailbox.<\/p>\n

For better and for worse, Philadelphia\u2019s biggest player of the Halloween scare-and-switch fundraising shtick is Eastern State Penitentiary<\/a>. Not long after 1994, when the Pennsylvania Prison Society opened the 1820s landmark for its first season of interpretative tours, the Halloween seed was planted and nourished. Folks at Eastern State didn\u2019t invent October magic, but they certainly reinvented it. Over the last two decades, Eastern State informs us<\/a>, they\u2019ve become \u201cthe nation\u2019s premier haunted attraction, head and shoulders above the hay rides and other haunted houses out there. Our goal is to make you scared. Really scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, Haunted Attraction Magazine<\/a> anointed Eastern State among the nation\u2019s top three \u201cmust-see haunted houses\u201d (it\u2019s currently number 19.) Each year, the stakes grow greater and the slope gets more slippery.<\/p>\n

Eastern State is hardly alone. Television\u2019s Ghost Hunters<\/em> (on the Syfy channel) launched its fifth season<\/a> with a story of violence and death at the Betsy Ross House\u2014from 1980. (Ghost Hunters<\/em>\u2019 current season exploits the 20th century horrors of overcrowded conditions at the closed Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Chester County.) Back in town, the City Tavern gets into the act with tales of a former waiter who died in a bar fight. Fort Mifflin brags of battlefield ghost Elizabeth Pratt, aka \u201cThe Screaming Woman.\u201d There\u2019s “The Spirits of ’76 Ghost Tour<\/a>.\u201d Germantown has its \u201cGhosts of the Great Road<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the best in its class, Eastern State gets to charge as much as $30 per ticket, half of which goes to their bottom line. Then there\u2019s a cut of parking sales and the “Fright and a Bite” dinner packages with nearby restaurants. Souvenirs stocked at the \u201cnighttime haunted house store<\/a>\u201d include \u201cTerror Behind the Walls\u201d tee-shirts, shot glasses and boxer shorts (black only). Visitors can buy plush, miniature versions of \u201cFrank the Gargoyle,\u201d or the latest edition of Haunted Attraction Magazine<\/em>, \u201cthe premier publication of the dark amusement industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, according to documents filed with the IRS, Eastern State collected nearly $1.4 million from the fundraising event called Halloween. Where does that money go? A fire suppression system, stabilization of cellblocks, a tower cam. It\u2019s no trick. Year after year, the bulk of Eastern State\u2019s budget comes from Halloween treats.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s terrifying is that Eastern State has become deeply addicted to this funding scenario. And it summons up another frightening question: What is the site\u2019s responsibility to the thousands of visitors lined up for a not-so-cheap thrill? It seems that during the Halloween fright-fest, Eastern State\u2019s mission<\/a> goes on hiatus, at least the part of it that claims to explain and interpret a \u201ccomplex history; to place current issues of corrections and justice in an historical framework; and to provide a public forum where these issues are discussed.\u201d These issues, their mission statement adds, are \u201cof central importance to our nation.\u201d Even in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eastern State Penitentiary, passage connecting cellblock 4 and the central hub, before stabilization, July 22, 2002. Photograph by Dick Gouldey. It used to be Halloween was for kids: all fun and screams. Now it\u2019s into the serious stuff of big business. Halloween\u2019s about the bottom line. And at historic sites, it\u2019s also about another line, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}