The Tombs
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The Tombs was the colloquial name for Manhattan Detention Complex, a former municipal jail at 125 White Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It was also the nickname for three previous city-run jails in the former Five Points neighborhood of lower Manhattan, in an area now known as the Civic Center.
The original Egyptian-Revival-style Tombs building in a photograph from 1893. Leonard Street, left. Centre Street, right.
Artist's depiction of the wedding of John C. Colt in The Tombs, 1842
The "Bridge of Sighs" connecting the 1902 Tombs prison at left with the 1894 Manhattan Criminal Courts building, looking west from Centre Street
Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat of the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Napoleon took a scientific expedition with him to Egypt. Publication of the expedition's work, the Description de l'Égypte, began in 1809 and was published as a series through 1826. The size and monumentality of the façades discovered during his adventure cemented the hold of Egyptian aesthetics on the Parisian elite. However, works of art and architecture in the Egyptian style had been made or built occasionally on the European continent since the time of the Renaissance.
Image: Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly Shepherd, Metropolitan Improvements (1828), p 295 (edited)
Image: Neues Museum Aegyptischer Hof
Image: 2043 05370 De Grote Tempel van de vrijmetselaarsloge Les Amis Philanthropes
Image: Egyptian Theatre on Main St, Delta, Colorado