124-125 White Street

Project completed in collaboration with MC Love and Laura Song

We began this project with a critical perspective on the renders presented by the city for the proposed Manhattan-based prison at 124–125 White Street. These abstracted images—always exterior ground-level views with an applied watercolor Photoshop filter—serve as the primary mode of representation for the proposed 500-foot jailscraper, disseminated by the DDC, the DOC, and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

By intentionally obscuring the prison’s function as a site of enclosure and detention, these visuals are designed to garner citywide support for the borough-based jail initiative following the planned closure of Rikers Island. They appear alongside narratives that attempt to reframe prisons as civic assets to their neighborhoods and to the city at large, supported by an $8 billion budget for the construction of four new detention centers in New York City and allocations for “new neighborhood investments”, such as the expansion of MOCA’s headquarters at 215 Centre Street.

We began this project with a critical perspective on the renders presented by the city for the proposed Manhattan-based prison at 124–125 White Street. These abstracted images—always exterior ground-level views with an applied watercolor Photoshop filter—serve as the primary mode of representation for the proposed 500-foot jailscraper, disseminated by the DDC, the DOC, and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

By intentionally obscuring the prison’s function as a site of enclosure and detention, these visuals are designed to garner citywide support for the borough-based jail initiative following the planned closure of Rikers Island. They appear alongside narratives that attempt to reframe prisons as civic assets to their neighborhoods and to the city at large, supported by an $8 billion budget for the construction of four new detention centers in New York City and allocations for “new neighborhood investments”, such as the expansion of MOCA’s headquarters at 215 Centre Street.

This film traces the history of 124–125 White Street as a carceral space and explores architecture’s complicity in systems of racial capitalism—from the construction of The Tombs to the Manhattan Detention Complex, to the jailscraper scheduled for completion in 2032.

Drawing on drone and camera balloon footage we captured of the demolition site, archival materials, and audio from public forums discussing the Chinatown jailscraper, we aim to destabilize these sanitized and abstracted images and narratives by foregrounding the material consequences of this construction project for both the surrounding neighborhood and incarcerated individuals. This film traces the history of 124–125 White Street as a carceral space and explores architecture’s complicity in systems of racial capitalism—from the construction of The Tombs to the Manhattan Detention Complex, to the jailscraper scheduled for completion in 2032.