Eastern State Penitentiary

A penitentiary that took its first inmate in 1829 and is now a historic site. Atlas Obscura calls it famously haunted; the site itself bans paranormal investigations.

The historic site says the first prisoner arrived at Eastern State in 1829, while building work was still going on. Its system of solitary confinement drew criticism early. After a visit in 1842, Charles Dickens condemned the isolation as hopeless and judged its effects cruel and wrong.

The prison later drew ghost hunters. Wikipedia records that Most Haunted Live broadcast a seven-hour paranormal investigation from the building on June 1, 2007.

The site itself bans paranormal investigations, including EVP recorders and other ghost-hunting equipment. It says it knows many visitors are interested, but its mission comes first: programmes on the prison's history and its links to criminal justice reform today.

Writing for Atlas Obscura in 2023, Fayge Horesh set the prison beside a Rite Aid two blocks away. She wrote that the prison saw much injustice and inhumanity, yet the drug store stands on a mass grave dating from the 18th century and has no ghost reputation at all.