Between Manhattan and smoky Queens lies a thin strip of grey land with grey buildings in the middle of the sludgy grey waters of the East River. It used to be called Blackwell's Island. In 1921 its name was changed to Welfare Island. Motorists crossing the Queensboro Bridge span it in daily thousands. Wealthy socialites in their riverfront apartments pay big money to look at it. But Welfare Island is not a nice place to visit and nobody would want to live there. It is the site of the New York County Penitentiary.
Early one morning last week several carloads of men, led by New York City's thin, purse-lipped new Commissioner of Correction Austin Harbutt MacCormick and his stocky aid David Marcus, descended the elevator from the Queensboro Bridge, made Welfare Island a surprise visit. By sundown Commissioner MacCormick had lifted the lid off Welfare Island and given city. State and nation a terrifying glimpse into the nether depths of prison life. "The worst prison in the world," pronounced Commissioner MacCormick, whom new Fusion Mayor LaGuardia had enlisted from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to clean up penal scandals left by years of Tammany rule. "The most corrupt prison in the country, physically and from every other standpoint. . . . A vicious circle of depravity that is almost beyond the ability of the imagination to grasp!"
First stop on the itinerary of Commissioner MacCormick's raiding party was a cell-block largely tenanted by narcotic addicts who whimpered in their blankets, begged their visitors for "just a little shot." In their littered cells were found electric stoves, pots, pans, hatchets, butcher knives, lengths of lead pipe, needle-pointed stilettos (see cut). Some narcotics were discovered, a complete hypodermic set, blackened spoons in which "dope" had been cooked, needles and gouges with which inmates without syringes gashed themselves to let the precious drugs into their veins. To the police it looked more like a hop house than a prison.
The dregs of the prison's life were still howling disconsolately among the debris of their possessions when the raiders turned their attention to the prison's hierarchy. Sixty-eight prisoners, the Commissioner found, virtually ran Welfare Island. They cowed their guards through outside political influence. They sold to some 500 inmates the best of vegetables and meats. Star boarders prepared this food in their own cells, and the prison library of more than 1,000 volumes had entirely vanished as cooking fuel. Since the food was looted from the prison commissary, the other 1,200 prisoners virtually starved on greasy cold stews.
In addition, the ring sold narcotics, provided monied prisoners with clothing filched from newcomers, even had a strong voice in the granting of paroles. Divided between an Irish and an Italian gang, the hierarchy lived soft in two hospital wards, while men who should have been hospitalized—100 drug addicts, more than 100 venereal cases, 13 insane patients and one man suffering with sleeping sickness—roamed at large through the prison spreading demoralization and infection.