However, there was no mention in the January press release that officials and residents in the Town and Village of Ossining have been working on a similar suggestion since 1994. In February 2004, they had sent a letter to Charles A. Gargano, Chairman of Empire State Development Corporation requesting funds for a prison museum -- albeit somewhat more subdued than the one Mr. Spano is proposing.

In his letter to Mr. Gargano, Mr. Spano said, "Sing Sing could be the perfect catalyst for the Hudson Valley tourism industry, attracting tourists from all over the world."

He continued, "the internationally infamous prison, which was the site of the nations first electric chair and a favorite subject of Hollywood in the 20s and 30s, was ideally located on the river where ferry boats could deliver visitors."

In 1825, $20,100 was appropriated to buy the 130 acre site, named after the Sint Sinck Native Americans. By May, Elam Lynds, Warden of Auburn Prison, had selected 100 convicts from that prison and brought them by barge along the Erie Canal to freighters down the Hudson River. They arrived in Sing Sing on May 14, "without a place to receive them or a wall to enclose them."

The initial construction included a cell block 476 feet long, 44 feet wide, and four tiers high, with a capacity of 800 cells, all built of Sing Sing marble, quarried by the prisoners. Each cell was seven feet deep, three feet, three inches wide and six feet, seven inches high.

Two additional buildings were added by 1830, one containing a hospital and a kitchen; the other a chapel for 900 men. A recreation yard was added in 1831.

Mr. Lynds controlled by brutal intimidation and the use of the lash. Inmates were forced to march in the lock-step, diet was meager and diseases prevalent.

By the 1860s, some improvements in visitation rights, diet and facilities had been introduced and by 1895 the buildings were lighted, and basic instruction and religious services were provided.

The "Electric Chair" will always be associated with Sing Sing. It was first used in the 1890s when Harris A. Smiler was the first to be electrocuted. Between then and 1963, 613 more men and women died in the prison's chair. The Rosenbergs were electrocuted in 1953 after an international story of espionage.

With the turn of the twentieth century, prison reform made dramatic changes in the way prisoners were treated. The lockstep was abolished in 1900 and the striped uniform went the same way four years later. Inmates were gradually permitted "freedom of the yard" and baseball was introduced on the recreation field.

Overseers of Sing Sing early in the first half of the 1900s, watched the construction of new cellblocks, a new chapel, an administration building, segregation building, storehouse, mess hall bath house and barber shop. A library was installed, along with classrooms for the inmates. Warden Lewis E. Lawes allowed a former New York City newspaper editor convicted of murder to build a large bird house within the prison grounds.

Prisoners left the old cell block for the last time in 1943. The iron bars were removed and donated for use in the war effort. A fire destroyed the roof in 1984, leaving the shell which remains to this day -- reportedly listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

According to Mr. Spano's press release, the idea of a museum at the prison has been endorsed by both the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Historic Hudson Valley, which operate tourist attractions like Lyndhurst, Sunnyside and Kykuit.

"A recent marketing study found that the establishment of a Sing Sing Historic Prison Museum could create not only a national destination, but an international one that would rival the popularity of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, wrote Mr. Spano in his letter to Gargano. "The economic impacts and the opportunities for business development in the downtowns of the 13 historic river towns from Yonkers to Peekskill cannot be underestimated.

Under the tentative plan, it would cost about $5.8 million to turn the prisons former power plant into a museum building and create a tunnel that would lead to Sing Sings original cell block, which would house a replica of the electric chair and other prison memorabilia. He estimated that it would cost between $500,000 and $800,000 to operate the museum, all of which could be raised from tourism proceeds.

Based on tourist attendance figures at other prisons, Spano said he estimated that Sing Sing could generate about $20.5 million a year for the state, with $10.7 million going directly to Westchesters economy. The museum, he added, is estimated to create 257 new jobs, 113 of those in Westchester.

Jerry Mulligan, Westchesters Commissioner of Planning, said that everyone approached about the project was very excited, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He said the trust is looking to branch out from historic homes of the wealthy to educate the public on other faces of history. Sing Sing, he said, would be the perfect venue for this venture.