——-<\/p>\n
There were a few reformatories that NYC youth (both juveniles, and those 16 and older) could be sent to upon conviction of a crime.\u00a0 Places such as Wiltwyck, Elmira Reformatory (this was a holding detention center), Otisville, Lincoln Hall and “Warwick.”\u00a0 Warwick was actually the New York State Training School for Boys, but most people referred to it as Warwick.\u00a0 As can be expected, the opinions of these institutions varied.\u00a0 Some of those incarcerated had fond memories, and others recalled miserable experiences.\u00a0 In my research I came across an interesting-looking letter head for an institution I hadn’t heard of until that point – Berkshire Industrial Farm.<\/p>\n
![\"Berkshire](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Berkshire-Industrial-Farm-Letterhead.jpg?resize=640%2C245&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Berkshire Industrial Farm Letterhead<\/p><\/div>\n
Berkshire Industrial Farm was in the countryside of Canaan, New York and was a facility for young men from New York that was on 2,000 acres of land.<\/p>\n
(Begin Update Dec.26, 2016)<\/p>\n
In 2008, I conducted an interview with “Bobby” who was at Berkshire from 1957-1961.\u00a0 Over a wide-ranging two hour interview, he shared about growing up in Brooklyn as well as living at Berkshire.<\/p>\n
At first, he\u00a0 hated Berkshire, and ran away 13 times, twice making it home.\u00a0 But years later his perspective changed when he saw that most of his friends turned to drugs and that Berkshire likely saved his life.\u00a0 Even when he got out in 1961, he still ran with a gang in Brooklyn called the Mau Maus and became entangled with other gangs like the Apaches, Fort Greene Chaplains and Cross Park Chaplains.\u00a0 He had many colorful stories to share, but at this time, gangs were losing their grasp on New York City and he was eventually able to get out of the gang life.<\/p>\n
Before he was sent to Berkshire in 1957, Bobby lived in very poor conditions.\u00a0 His mother was alone with three kids and living on welfare.\u00a0 Corn bread was a staple in their home.\u00a0 Corn bread for breakfast, corn bread for lunch and corn bread for dinner.\u00a0 Sometimes to spice things up she would “put a little vanilla extract in the son of a bitch,” so it would taste like a cake.\u00a0 For the times he didn’t have corn bread, his mother provided spam and “bonina” (phonetic) in a can which was a cheaper substitute than tuna fish.<\/p>\n
When we discussed the food quality at Berkshire, he said, “You got three square meals a day.\u00a0 I’m not saying it was…(trails off)\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 It was good food, it wasn’t bad food, shit!”<\/p>\n
Berkshire was only for boys and was set up into several different cottages.\u00a0 Each boy belonged to a cottage and had to take care of his area and make his bed.\u00a0 You were allowed to smoke if your mother signed for you.\u00a0 School was provided at Berkshire, but if you didn’t like school, you had the option to join a work detail for half a day and do school the other half.\u00a0 Bobby missed his family, and although he ran away so many times, his final verdict was that, “all in all, shit, it was paradise.”<\/p>\n
(End Update Dec.26, 2016)<\/p>\n
Berkshire is still around today, but under a different name.\u00a0 The other reformatories listed above were probably the most common.\u00a0 Which reformatory was the most feared among the gang jitterbuggers in the 1950s?\u00a0 I guess it could vary from person to person, but “Frenchy” of the Deacons (a gang in Bedford-Stuyvesant) who was the subject of Out of the Burning, <\/em>by Ira Freeman, felt that it was a place called Hampton Farms.\u00a0 In his opinion it was the worst place to be:<\/p>\n “I had heard plenty about Hampton Farms already.\u00a0 It was a junior Sing Sing, with cell blocks and hard labour, no pansy reform school.\u00a0 Hampton was for youths sixteen to twenty-one and for those juveniles too hard to handle at Warwick.\u00a0 Like every state-o bum at Warwick, I feared shipment to the annex more than anything else.”<\/p>\n Below is a picture of Hampton Farms circa 1916.<\/p>\n Hampton Farms<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before you get to the article\u2026 On February 23, 2018, my book on the Mau Maus and Sand Street Angels, who were two Brooklyn youth gangs from the 1950s, has been completed.\u00a0 It took 15 years of research and writing … Continue reading ![\"Hampton](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Hampton-Farms.jpg?resize=640%2C192&ssl=1\")
<\/a>