Prison where inmates escaped central to New York town

DANNEMORA, N.Y. – The 40-foot-high wall of the maximum-security state prison in Dannemora runs right along the main street, a hulking symbol of the institution’s dominance over practically every aspect of life.

Nearly everyone in this mountain village of about 5,000 near the Canadian border works at the prison or is related to someone who does, a link that in some cases goes back generations. That’s why the audacious prison break over the weekend by two convicts using power tools cuts deep into the collective pride.

“It’s a black eye for the guys who work in the jail. We were proud that we had no escapes,” said Jerry Varin, who stressed that the corrections officers perform a difficult job. “Under the conditions, I think my friends and my relatives do the best job they can.”

Dannemora looks more like a prison with a village attached than a village with a prison. The 3,000-inmate Clinton Correctional Facility sits smack in the middle of everything (some residents jokingly call it their “town hall”).

“I have been here long enough I don’t even recognize the wall. To me, it’s an economic engine. That’s what it is,” said Dave Coulon, behind the counter of DC Auto Parts, just down the road from the prison where his father and grandfather once worked.

Dannemora remained in a sort of lockdown Monday with troopers and corrections officers manning roadblocks. Days after convicted killers David Sweat and Richard Matt broke out, drivers were still being questioned, trunks were being inspected and teams with bloodhounds continued to search the woods nearby.

But as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other state officials issued dire warnings about the escaped inmates, many around Dannemora appeared unworried. They figured the killers were long gone, and the heavy police presence only added to their sense of security.

“We always joke about it. We’re so close to the prison – that’s the last place that anyone who escaped would want to be,” said Jessica Lashway, who waited for the bus with her school-age children a few doors down from the prison.

When the prison was built in 1845, it was designed to serve two functions: as a remote lockup for convicts some 300 miles from New York City, and as a pool of cheap labor for upstate New York’s then-burgeoning iron-mining industry.