The first New York State Penitentiary was located in Greenwich Village, just steps from what is now Sheridan Square. The prison, presumably named after its infamous predecessor in London, was built in 1797 and was shut down only thirty years later. By 1828, the prison’s size proved inadequate to house the criminal element of the city’s vastly increasing population. Interestingly, this closing occurred just before Washington Square’s hay-day and just after the conversion of the potter’s field to a parade ground. Undoubtedly, one of the great draws of the Hudson River location on Christopher Street was its proximity to the potter’s field. When the potter’s field was converted to a parade ground the location lost much of its draw. For several years New Yorkers found great entertainment in watching prisoners march the few short blocks from the prison to the permanent gallows on the potter’s field. Most, of course, stayed to watch the hanging of these men were then generally thrown into unmarked graves. In order to link this post with my last post, I should mention that most of these men still reside beneath the soil of Washington Square Park.
Newgate Prison
October 14, 2010 by JAS
Researching Greenwich Village History 
Really interesting- what happened to the facility when it was closed was it torn down? Why exactly was the potter’s field turned into a parade ground?
[…] The history of the name of one of the narrowest streets in New York City can be somewhat difficult to piece together. One of the aspects that makes it most confusing to track is that it changed many times, both officially and unofficially, over the course of the street’s 200-year history. The street in question, today known as Charles Lane, first came into existence as a small, unnamed roadway on the north side of Newgate State Prison. […]
[…] established in 1773 is considered to be the very first prison in America and was soon followed by Newgate in New York in 1797. These prisons did not stay open for long, but they served as the main […]