[1][2][3][4] For nearly 140 years the Moyamensing Prison dominated the southwest corner of the intersection of Passyunk Avenue and Reed Street in South Philadelphia.

In 1831, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania authorized the erection of a facility to be called the prison of the city and county of Philadelphia.

The octagonal towers which flanked the wings, and the bastions on the extreme angles of the front, were likewise crowned with pierced battlements corresponding with the rest of the design.

The main prison contained 408 separate cells, built in two blocks of three stories in height, extending from each wing at right angles with the principal front.

The cells opened into a corridor of 20 feet (6.1 m) in width, occupying the center of each block and extending the whole length and height of the building.

The furnaces were constructed at each end, and in the center of each block, and the warm air was conveyed along passages of 3 feet (0.91 m) in width, under the pavement of the corridor.

The kitchen, bakehouse, laundry, and bathhouses were situated in a separate building, occupying a space of 43 by 72 feet (13 by 22 m), in the yard between the two blocks of cells; they were approached from both divisions of the prison, by means of covered passages.

The interior featured two stories on a raised basement, with a central longitudinal corridor floor plan with flanking prison cells.

The façade consisted of a recessed three-bay portico, supported by two columns, and was proportioned from those of a temple on the Isle d'Elephantine in Egypt.

The windows were crowned with the massy bead and cavetto cornice peculiar to the style, and the top of the building was finished in the same manner.

[2][7][8][6] The prison complex was demolished in 1968, and the front portico of the Debtor’s Wing is in the possession of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.[7] Today, all that is left is a low heavy masonry stone wall remaining on the site along Reed Street where the Acme Market shopping center sits today.

[10] Tom Hyer, reigning American bare knuckle heavyweight champion, was briefly held at Moyamensing while waiting for a requisition from the Governor of Maryland prosecuting him for an illegal but well-attended and highly publicized prize fight against Irish boxer Yankee Sullivan on February 7, 1849.

Friends comfortably furnished his cell, and he received letters and several hundred visitors including both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.