Just a few miles from the Philadelphia Art Museum is one of the scariest places in town. However, this place is not just scary during the Halloween season. All year long this immense castle-like building lurks over the Fairmont area of Philadelphia with many untold secrets behind its walls. It used to hold the city’s meanest and scariest people, such as Al Capone and Willie Sutton. Now the scary, rotting jail is a place of spinetingling entertainment for millions of people every Halloween. This haunted house has been ranked as one of the scariest by many sources such as the New York Times and America Online. However, Eastern State has not stopped trying to come up with new ways to frighten visitors. This year it’s better than ever with new frightening attractions. They now have a total of five different sections: Maximum Security, 13 Rooms, The Experiment, Tunnel Escape, and the newest attraction called Intake. This new feature has taken since April to perfect. It encompasses 7,000 square feet of indoor/ outdoor attractions and includes being taken into the Processing Center by bus, then to see the Warden to be separated into the “good” and “bad” prisoners.
The other sections have also been updated this year. Jason Ohlsen is the technical director and he states that, “…our guests will not be disappointed.” For all of you scaredy cats out there, they even have a night devoted to families called Slight Fright Night. On these nights you can say “Monster be good” and they will listen. It is still not available for children under 7 because of the high startle attractions. If you’re lucky enough to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the haunted house, many things will surprise you. Tunnels parallel the haunted walkway throughout the whole house. This is where the actors stand to scare visitors from behind walls. The penitentary employs 124 workers each year to man this spooky haunted prison.
Also, the haunted section of the prison stands all year long. It is kept separate from the regular part of the prison that is toured all year. In order to preserve the original structure of the jail they basically slide a haunted house inside the walls, without nailing or bolting anything to the original structures. The haunt is run with manual scare tactics performed by the actors and also by computer operated monsters and equipment.
You still have one weekend left to be scared out of your mind, so hurry on down to Philadelphia. There are several different ways to purchase tickets. Tickets are available at the Penitentiary itself, online at Ticketmaster, or by phone at (215) 336-2000. All of the proceeds go toward the restoration of the prison and half of the ticket price can be written of as a donation to charity.