Sentence structure

Retired First District Sgt. Louis Carbo remembers "Moco" well. That was what everybody called Moyamensing Prison, also known as Philadelphia County Prison, at 10th and Reed streets. Not that he was ever incarcerated there, mind you. But as a kid growing up in Bella Vista at Ninth and Bainbridge streets, he would often walk by the stone edifice that resembled the Eastern State Penitentiary in the Fairmount section and Holmesburg Prison in Holmesburg. Police Lt. Steve Biello, who also grew up in Bella Vista, remembers walking past "Moco," too.

"Nobody used to like to walk on that side of the street by the prison. It’s a scary place when you’re a little kid," Carbo said.

Even scarier given the fact that America’s first serial killer was incarcerated there for several months before he was hanged May 6, 1896.

Herman W. Mudgett, a.k.a. H.H. Holmes, was a Chicago resident who made his living by fraud. He was accused of killing close to 200 young women he lured to his 100-room "Castle of Death" mansion on Chicago’s South Side. Holmes finished his mansion just in time for the 1893 World’s Exposition. He attracted his victims by placing ads in local papers advertising his home as a boarding house. The mansion had secret passages, trap doors and hidden rooms where he robbed, tortured, killed and dissected his victims. The crafty killer disposed of their remains by dissolving them in vats of acid or incinerating them in a basement crematory.

Holmes was finally arrested in 1895 in Philadelphia after the murder of a fellow swindler, according to a Website on Chicago history.

Famous Philly architect Thomas Ustick Walter, who designed the Academy of Natural Sciences and Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul, designed Moyamensing Prison in the gothic style. It was built over several years, from 1832 to 1835. The place became so decrepit the city demolished it in 1963, according to the city’s Web site. It is now an Acme supermarket.

"It’s kind of a disgrace that it’s now an Acme and not some kind of historic site. It was an interesting part of South Philly history," said Biello.

Some older residents in his neighborhood knew men incarcerated at "Moco" and they passed down stories about how the prisoners would steal bread from the cafeteria and sneak it back under their arms to their cells.

Carbo remembers his and his friends’ parents using the prison as a behavior bargaining tool.

"If you don’t behave, you’re going to Moco. That was the big threat growing up," he said.

Joe Giunta, who grew up on the 1300 block of Passyunk Avenue, was actually in the building. After it was no longer an active facility, Giunta and his pals would climb in the cells and look for ghosts. Although the cells were normal size, the gates on each were not. They were about 4-feet high and prisoners had to "climb" into them, Giunta said. Perhaps a little too much for the senses, the friends never went there at night.

Chain gangs were a common site for many who lived near the penitentiary. Giunta said he remembers seeing the gangs cleaning the area between Reed and Dickinson streets. His mother would not let him play outside when the jailers were working.