Michael Friedman in the Tombs

After some time, two other men are placed in my cell. They were arrested last night, but because of a leg injury in one man and an unclear condition in the other, they were taken to hospital, and now have to go through the system again. One of them tells me that Central Booking downtown is overwhelmed because the police were asked by the district attorney to make a sweep this weekend, and I will probably not be released until tomorrow.

‘You’ll probably spend the night in the Tombs.’

The Tombs is the nickname for the cells below Central Booking on Centre Street, famously built into a polluted landfill in 1838.