Why the World’s Tallest Jail in New York City Is So Controversial

A Brutalist structure and Art Deco monolith—together known colloquially as The Tombs—aren’t the first jails to preside over downtown Manhattan. Towering above a senior center and a leafy community park, this jail in New York City has long been dedicated to incarceration, since the original Egyptian Revival–styled jail in New York City in 1838. Though the current architecture no longer resembles the ancient mausoleums of Egypt, the nickname The Tombs still resonates. Now, with New York City’s criminal justice reform program underway, The Tombs—formally the Manhattan Detention Complex—are undergoing another demolition, making way for what could be the world’s tallest jail.

Dubbed by locals as The Jailscraper, it’s projected to stretch 300 feet in the air, about the height of NYC’s Statue of Liberty or London’s Big Ben. “It’s a nightmare. For generations, Chinatown has been overshadowed by jails,” said Jan Lee, cofounder of Neighbors United Below Canal, a group of thousands of residents, businesses, and stakeholders who oppose the new detention center. “Our focus should be on safety, scale, and preserving the unique cultural identity of Chinatown. It’s a neighborhood defined by its rich heritage, not by a hazardously constructed jail that threatens its surroundings.”

The Tombs’s demolition is part of the city’s larger Borough-Based Jails Program, a seismic initiative to close Rikers Island and replace the city’s largest jail complex with four new jails in various communities. The new jails are to be designed with less harsh materials, while also providing more sunlight, greenery, and programming space. What’s more, the idea is to also place the jails geographically closer to loved ones, attorneys, and courthouses. “Placing future jails in urban areas close to communities opens possibilities for local businesses and schools to actively engage in these rehabilitation efforts,” says Martin Stigsgaard, a neighbor of the Chinatown jail, professor at Spitzer School of Architecture CCNY, and principal architect of Studio Stigsgaard. “Incarceration should be a chance to help incarcerated people refocus and reintegrate into society.”

The Borough-Based Jails program is expected to cost $15 billion, according to the mayor’s budget director, Jacques Jiha, nearly double the original price tag. Some New Yorkers believe the city may have gone too far. “High-rise buildings are used, obviously, because space is so limited in the city, but at a cost,” says Richard Wener, a member of the city’s Closing Rikers Implementation Task Force and author of The Environmental Psychology of Prisons and Jails. “Most of the [task force] members were concerned about the jails getting too big—because of the difficulties in maintaining control and contact with staff and detainees as overall size grows. Technically a building can keep adding floors indefinitely, but increased size can make the facility more difficult to manage in a humane manner.”

A view of the demolition of the Manhattan Detention Complex in Chinatown in April 2024.

Photo: Getty Images

Meanwhile, locals say the demolition in downtown Manhattan is wreaking havoc on the community. Large cracks are forming in the wall of the adjacent Chung Pak senior housing center, residents are shutting their windows to block the debris, and businesses are worrying the lack of foot traffic may mean having to close their doors.