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Both were completed over a very short period of time, little
more than two weeks total, in the autumn of 1972. The
occasion was a system-wide review of correctional facilities
commenced by the NYS Department of Correctional Services in the wake
of the September, 1971 Attica insurrection. If I recall
correctly, the physical plants of every one of the department's
correctional facilities would undergo independent evaluation. The San Francisco architectural firm then known as Kaplan &
McLaughlin won the review contract for Clinton in
Dannemora. As it happened, I had worked on one or two
previous architectural review projects with Herb McLaughlin.
When Herb discovered that the outdoor recreation area at Clinton was the site of a complex of inmate patios, he called me and asked if I would catch a plane to New York and write up a descriptive analysis of this unlikely inmate institution. Exactly what my descriptive evaluation should do or accomplish was left to me. I was soon on that plane and wondering what I was going to find at Clinton. For the record, I was not a "Dr." in 1972, but instead mid-way in my grad school progress toward getting an M.A. in sociology at Berkeley. Truth be told, I didn't actually slip my head under a doctoral hood until 1991. Permit me to close by saying that I'd be very pleased indeed to receive e-mails from observers who may have had more recent experiences of Clinton's patios -- whether as staff, inmate, or in some other capacity (ron@roizen.com). I'd be intrigued to learn how much, or how little, the three intervening decades may have changed the institution I saw and tried to describe. My warm thanks go out to Tom McCarthy and the New York Correction History Society for putting these works online! With kindest regards,
Ron Roizen
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