Neighborhood-defining historic prison in Norristown threatened with demolition

A crime against historic preservation may be about to be committed in Norristown, PA, ironically threatening a landmark 19th century prison.

The old Airy Street prison in downtown Norristown, reminiscent of a castle of stone, has been proposed for demolition by the commissioners of Montgomery County, which owns the property. A county commissioner has called it a “symbol of injustice” and wants it gone, even though historic prisons in many other places have been successfully repurposed and repositioned as reminders of the flaws in our American system of justice.

In 1849, Montgomery County selected architect Napoleon LeBrun, famed for designing Philadelphia’s Academy of Music and the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, to design both a county courthouse and a prison. His prison design, completed in 1851, drew inspiration from architect John Haviland’s Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, with its imposing Gothic-style façade, and on architect Thomas Ustick Walter’s Moyamensing Prison, also in Philadelphia, with its prominent central tower (demolished in 1968). Airy Street Prison’s layout followed the requirements of the Pennsylvania solitary confinement system, considered modern and enlightened at the time, although later discredited as inhumane. The structure covers nearly an entire block between Airy and Maris streets and faces LeBrun’s courthouse, erected a few years later.

While the still-active courthouse has been remodeled, enlarged, and modernized over the years, the old Airy Street Prison ended its active life in 1987, when the county opened a maximum-security facility elsewhere. Since its closure, the county has performed only limited maintenance, allowing the structure to slowly decay. In July, county commissioners awarded a nearly $1 million demolition contract to clear the site.

Norristown has struggled with poverty and loss for decades. Once a hub for manufacturing that supported a thriving working-class population, the loss of industry has hit the municipality hard. It’s a familiar story seen elsewhere in the region in places such as Coatesville, Camden and Pottstown. Accompanying Norristown’s economic decline has been the loss of several other downtown landmarks, including an art deco movie palace, the Norris Theater, whose striking marquee now is on display at the Wolfsonian–Florida International University Museum in Miami, and the stately one-time home of the Norristown Times Herald.

Historic former jails in other towns have been preserved and repurposed. The historic Bucks County Prison in Doylestown is now home to the Michener Art Museum. The 1811 Burlington County Prison in Mount Holly, NJ, is now a prison museum. Similar prison museums can be found in the seats of Carbon and McKean counties in Pennsylvania. And of course, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia is a thriving museum and visitor attraction.

A group of area preservationists, along with the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, are calling on Montgomery County to spare the prison and spend the $1 million demolition budget on building stabilization so that advocates can pursue new uses that will bring new life to the building and to the municipality, which badly needs it. The clock is ticking, as a demolition permit application could go before the Norristown Municipal Council as soon as November.

With support from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, local advocates are working to continue to raise awareness around the historic prison in the hope of finding a compromise with the County and Norristown that preserves the stately 1851 structure. They have started an online petition and community engagement form, and plan to sell T-shirts to raise funds to help pay for legal counsel.

If the old Airy Street prison is destroyed, it will be a shameful loss to the Norristown skyline. Montgomery County will never see its like again. Such a building must be saved, renovated and repurposed, as other communities have done successfully. To replace it with a vacant lot will be yet another gap in the greatly diminished cityscape of beleaguered Norristown.

Paul Steinke is the executive director of Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.