![]() Ludlow was also where people who defaulted on their alimony ended up, a trend that would later turn the jail into an unofficial clubhouse for divorced men.Ĭorruption ran rampant through the New York City government at the time, so it is no wonder that the Ludlow Street Jail slipped almost immediately into the world of back-door deals and shady habits. Debtors’ prisons had been outlawed by the Federal Government in 1833, but claimants who could convince a judge that the debtor was a flight risk could, and often did, have the cheapskates locked up. Though about 10 percent of Ludlow Street Jail inmates were serving time for federal crimes, the main population was there due to civic offenses-particularly unpaid debts. National Archives and Records Administration/Public domain) The only real indications that it was a jail were the large iron doors and the crossed iron bars over the windows. ![]() The red-brick building with towering arched windows held 87 two-man, 10-foot-square cells, but did not look particularly menacing on the outside. Overseen by the Board of Aldermen-including Boss Tweed years before he would get caught stealing millions of dollars from the city-the Ludlow Street Jail was constructed in 1862 on the corner of Ludlow and Broome Streets in lower Manhattan. But even before all of that began, the Ludlow Street Jail, which crooked politician William “Boss” Tweed would both help found and later die in as an inmate, had a history full of extortion and corruption. It was here that deadbeat ex-husbands who owed alimony would allow themselves to be jailed just so they could live it up while sticking it to their ex-wives. Not exactly what you would expect to encounter during your average prison sentence, but that’s exactly what it was like inside the New York Alimony Club, a turn-of-the-century prison more formally known as the Ludlow Street Jail. Hanging out with a bunch of other divorced guys, crowing about being freed from the shackles of the ol’ ball and chain.
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