From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection
Great Meadow Prison, Comstock, N.Y. 39
View of a huge building complex with mountains in the distance. The Great Meadow Prison was built by the State of New York between 1909 and 1915 as the fourth prison for adult males in the state. It is located near the mid-Vermont border. The prison's multiple, massive brick wings, including, probably, a gymnasium and a steam power plant, sprawl across gently sloping land. The architecture of the 5 or 6-story cell blocks follows the imposing, Neo-Romanesque style applied to many institutional and commercial structures of the time. This is one of a series of images made in upstate New York state by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to New England or New York State. The glass plates would be sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street.
