3. Sugar House Prisons

During the Revolutionary War, sugar houses were often turned into prisons by the British, with deplorable conditions. On Duane Street, embedded into the wall of the NYPD Headquarters is (supposedly) a prison window dating back to 1763. The window is said to be a vestige of the haunted Rhinelander (originally Cuyler) Sugar House prison used during the British occupation of New York from 1776 to 1783.

Though there is evidence to suggest that this location may not have been used as a prison, the memorial stands testament to the prisoner brutality suffered by American revolutionaries at the hands of the British during the war. More than twice the number of deaths occurred in sugar houses and prison ships than on the battlefield during the American Revolution. The more infamous Livingston’s sugar house on Liberty Street housed up to 500 prisoners, according to this harrowing first-person account by Levi Howard, printed in The New York Times in 1852.