The Rikers Island facility known in NYC DOC parlance as "C-76" began on the drawing boards a half century ago as the Workhouse. It later became the Correctional Reception and Classification Center, and still later the Correctional Institution for Men. On July 14, 2000, it was renamed the Eric M. Taylor Center. Here's Part 2 of C-76's aliases history. The Webmaster |
Two maps outlining the relative positions of Rikers Island facilities, actual and projected, help tell the story of how C-76's name changed from the Correctional Reception and Classification Center (CRCC) to the Correctional Institution for Men (CIFM).
The first of the two maps appeared in the 1963 annual report [page 13]. It shows the southwest section of Rikers with the C-76 facility labeled "N.Y.C.C. Reception & Classification Center." The jail we know today as the James A. Thomas Center is labeled "N.Y.C. Correctional Institution for Men." This 1963 annual report map was entitled Projected Building Plans for Rikers Island and depicted both actual and planned facilities. In the accompanying text, Commissioner Kross noted the then current budget had contemplated the replacement of the Workhouse on Hart Island with the new Workhouse and Reception and Separation Center on Rikers Island. . . . but the unusually high inmate census necessitated the retention of the Workhouse on Hart Island. C-76 on Rikers was in operation as the Correctional Reception and Classification Center, and Hart Island Workhouse was also still in operation when Commissioner Kross filed her final report to Mayor Wagner Dec. 31, 1965. But the Hart Workhouse was shut down about seven months later under Mayor John V. Linday's Correction Commissioner, George F. McGrath. A story in the August-October 1966 issue of the Department's newsletter Correction Sidelights explained [pages 2 and 14]: A routine General Order to the personnel of the Department stated ". . . Effective 12:01 a.m. August 4, 1966, the New York City Workhouse located on Hart Island is discontinued as an institution of the Department" . . . . As the new Workhouse was being constructed on Rikers island to replace the Hart Island institution, it was decided to put it into service as an institution for the orientation, classification, and study of all sentenced male inmates and the subsequent placement of them into suitable rehabilitative and treatment programs. The newly built institution was designated as the New York City Correctional Reception and Classification Center for Men upon its official opening on January 18, 1965.
About three years and nine months after C-76 opened officially as the Correctional Reception and Classification Center, its name and main mission changed. It took on the name, Correctional Institution for Men, as well as the mission that had been assigned to the facility which was originally the Rikers Island Penitentiary and is now known as the James A. Thomas Center. That facility became the Adolescent Remand Shelter. The late 1968 issue of Correction Sidelights, the DOC newsletter, carried a full-page story on the name and mission change that was part of a much larger reshuffling of facility fuctions and populations. The newsletter featured a cover page map to illustrate the changes, a section of which is reproduced here in slightly modified form. Here are excerpts from the 1968 newsletter story, describing C-76 as the leading institution on the island, charged with many of the duties nowadays carried out by a number of different and specialized commands:
The largest transfer of prisoners in the City's history occurred over the weekend of September 20 to September 23 [1968] when 4,180 prisoners were transported by prison vans, buses and cars between and among 8 of the 9 major correctional institutions. No advance announcement of the mass transfer was made for security reasons.
The Commissioner [George F. McGrath] designated the New York City Correctional Institution for Men as the Adolescent Remand Shelter pending the construction of this institution on Rikers Island in approximately three years. With the unprecedented overcrowding in the detention institutions, the Department felt it expedient to house the adolescent (16 - 21) inmate population all in one central location: The detention adolescent at the New York City Correctional Institution for Men and the sentenced adolescent at the New York City Reformatory, both on Rikers Island. The adult Brooklyn detention cases, which had been scattered throughout the City of New York creating a departmental transportation problem, were returned to the Brooklyn House of Detention for Men in the County of original jurisdiction of their cases. The scattering of these prisoners throughout the City in the past 11 years has occasioned much complaint from visiting relatives and friends, attorneys and the courts. Another distinctive advantage is the fact that the Rikers Island institution is much better suited for the custody, care and rehabilitation of the adolescent accused of crime, than is the Brooklyn House of Detention for Men. It was not designed to provide programs for an adolescent detention population. . . . With this unprecedented transfer of prisoners effected, adult detention cages will largely be held in the County of original jurisdiction in so far as it is physically possible. . . .
The New York City Correctional Reception and Classification Center for Men is redesignated as the NEW YORK CITY CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION FOR MEN. The New York City Correctional Institution for Men shall serve as a sentence institution for all males 21 years of age and over who have been committed to serve definite sentences in accordance with appropriate provisions of the Penal Law. It shall continue to care for all males, 21 years of age and over, presently under its jurisdiction who are serving penitentiary or workhouse sentences under the provisions of former law. In addition, the New York City Correctional Institution for Men shall function as the central reception, classification and separation facility of the Department for all males committed to serve sentences who have over 10 days of their sentences remaining to be served. The New York City Correctional Institution for Men shall have responsibility for the supervision and control of the following areas:
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