Occasionally, we tour guides are assigned miscellaneous work around ESP that includes anything from event setup to trash removal to changing light bulbs. Today, my assignment was…
to sweep the floor of Cellblock 7. Doesn’t seem very glamorous, does it?
Well, there’s actually another take on a task like this. Everything that falls on the floor at ESP is from another time that I could not possibly have experienced. I swept up debris from walls that were touched by a guy who stole a horse in 1840. I cleaned plaster from the floor that female inmates walked on for a short time.
It’s not such a stretch to describe my task in this way. Yep, I actually swept up history today.
Think of that next time you visit ESP, and perhaps you’ll understand our credo of “stabilized ruin” - history, right there below your feet!
Michael Donnelly
Tour Guide
