As a way of wishing to all the blessings of this holy and holiday season, I have written for our NYCHS web site a correction history Christmas story entitled "Sing Sing Convicts, Their 'Little Mother,' and Her Sidewalk Santas."  It's my vehicle for saying Merry Christmas and Happy New York.
 
In researching another presentation (also just added - "Revisiting Deadly 1941 Sing Sing Escape"), I found unrelated but to me fascinating information about an event that took place at Sing Sing on Christmas Eve 109 years ago and that still echoes on the sidewalks of New York this season each year. 
 
So I followed up on the "up the river" Yule history after I posted on our site the 7-page presentation about the bloody prison breakout.
 
I hope the title of the one-page Christmas season story -- "Sing Sing Convicts, Their 'Little Mother,' and Her Sidewalk Santas" -- whets your curiosity. Its URL is: http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/sidewalksantas/sidewalksantas.html
 
The URL for "Revisiting Deadly 1941 Sing Sing Escape" is:
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/singsingbreak/1941singsingescape.html
 
Although the breakout happened six and a half decades ago, the story elements involved are as fresh as today's headlines: prisoners escaped, officers killed, captured and convicted escapees executed,  accomplices' convictions overturned after courts ruled more than a decade and a half later that the 'confessions' were extracted by "torture."
 
Both presentations can be accessed via the New York Correction History Society home page at
www.correctionhistory.org
and from our site's Sing Sing history menu page at
http://www.correctionhistory.org/singsing
 
 
Tom McCarthy
NY Correction History Society
general secretary/webmaster