Break out of the ordinary and celebrate Valentine’s Day with special Winter Adventure Tours from Saturday, February 11 through Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Bring your valentine to receive buy one get one free admission and experience the history of Eastern State with a focus on love stories throughout the prison’s history.
Eastern State Penitentiary is beautiful in the stark, cold months of winter and makes for a perfect setting for romance. The buy one get one free offer to bring your valentine on February 11-14, 2012 is valid for one full price adult admission only. This offer can only be redeemed online by using promo code BALLANDCHAIN.
Does your love story involve Eastern State? Click here to learn about our Valentine's Day contest. You could win a romantic dinner for two in the cellblocks!
Free
Eastern State Penitentiary is free all day for a sneak peek at the 2012 exhibits and tours.
Free with Admission
Eastern State Penitentiary kicks off its 2012 season with a weekend celebrating three dramatic new tours for the site’s popular Hands-On History program:
“The Ruins of Death Row” takes visitors into the collapsing exercise yards of Cellblock 15, also called Death Row. The space has never been open to the public (there was a preview weekend in 2011).
“The Operating Room” takes visitors into the long-abandoned surgical theater, part of the prison’s once state-of-the-art hospital. The space has never been open to the public.
“Families Behind Walls” allows visitors the chance to step into the ground floor of one of Eastern State’s corner guard towers, discovering evidence of when these spaces once housed officers and their families.
General Admission: $5.00
Historic Site Members: Free
Details to be announced.
Free
Eastern State Penitentiary hosts a changing series of artist installations and historic exhibits as part of the historic site’s ongoing programming. In 2012 there will be 11 artist installations on view during all public hours, including new installations by artists Lisa Bateman, Tyler Held, Ryan Legassicke, and Judith Schaechter. Join us for a chance to meet the artists and see the new work! Light refreshments served.
Free with admission
People are sometimes surprised to find that many of Eastern State's former officers and inmates enjoy returning to the cellblocks to catch up with old friends and share their memories with the public. This weekend only, our alumni — both officers and inmates — answer questions and meet visitors.
General Admission: $5.00
Historic Site Members: Free
Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site partners with Lantern Theater Company to present a discussion of prisons as tools in political oppression, and how these themes have been addressed covertly by artists living under repressive regimes. Organized in conjunction with Lantern Theater Company’s production of The Island by South African playwright Athol Fugard, a play based loosely on the Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment on Robben Island under the apartheid government of South Africa.
General Admission: $5.00
Historic Site Members: Free
Details to be announced.
Standard Admission
Photographers have Eastern State Penitentiary to themselves in the beautiful dusk light. Tripods, models, and hand-held lighting equipment are all welcome during these hours. Standard admission for any person entering.
Free with Admission
11:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
All New Restored Bocci Court and Living History
Most inmates didn’t literally escape from prison; they found meaning, friendship and recreation, when possible, inside the walls. This weekend, visitors can try their hand at Bocci Ball, a traditional Italian recreation practiced by aging inmates at Eastern State throughout the 20th century. The original courts were built at the base of Eastern State’s massive wall, and are now open, fully restored, for the first time this weekend. Prizes awarded all weekend for best players!
ALSO
Two actors—one portraying tunnel mastermind Clarence Klinedinst and one portraying bank robber “Slick Willie” Sutton—give their conflicting accounts of who designed the 1945 tunnel, how it was built, and why the escapees got caught. Meet each inmate in his cell and see how their accounts vary. Based on actual conflicts in the accounts of Willie Sutton and Clarence Klinedinst.
General Admission: $5.00
Historic Site Members: Free
Details to be announced.
Standard Admission
Photographers have Eastern State Penitentiary to themselves in the beautiful dusk light. Tripods, models, and hand-held lighting equipment are all welcome during these hours. Standard admission for any person entering.
Standard Admission
The penitentiary is open from 10 am until 5 pm. Eastern State is located just three blocks from the Ben Franklin Parkway, site of the some of the best fireworks in the nation! So tour Eastern State, have dinner at one of the great neighborhood restaurants, and stay for the fireworks! Happy Independence Day!
Reenactment and Street Party Free
One of Philadelphia’s most popular summertime events! Eastern State Penitentiary teams with Philadelphia cabaret act The Bearded Ladies and local businesses for a playful reenactment of the Storming of the Bastille (influenced more by Monty Python than the French Revolution), followed by a French-themed street party. Come early and take a tour of Eastern State (standard admission), or stay late and take a 25-minute evening tour following the reenactment ($10 Adults, $5 Students, Seniors and Kids).
Click here for more information.
General Admission: $5.00
Eerie and emotionally charged meetings between a betrayed woman and a death-row prisoner mark the course of South Korean auteur Ki-duk Kim’s 2007 Cannes Film Festival Best Film nominee. Breath stands as a complex meditation on grief, the redemptive human spirit, and the desire for true communication in the fragmentation of modern times.
