Monday, October 21, 2013

Sing Sing


This is literally one I've wondered about since I was about five years old. (Yes, it sometimes takes me time to get around to solving things.) I know this because Sing Sing was mentioned in a Shirley Temple movie, which we used to watch when we were over visiting at my grandmother's on weekends. (I just looked this up--it was probably Baby Take a Bow.) When I was a kid, I thought this meant that the character in question had been imprisoned in China. Sing Sing just didn't sound like an American prison to me. But it is. In New York. That much I have somehow gleaned over the decades. But why it is called Sing Sing has remained a mystery to me. Until now.

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Apparently, it all starts with an American Indian tribe who were called the Sint Sink, which meant "stone upon stone". I say apparently, because that's what many of the sources say, even though there is no other reference to these people, and, really, what kind of tribe calls itself Stone Upon Stone? I thought people usually called themselves something like "The People" when referring to themselves. Without really knowing, it seems more likely that it was always the name of a place, as this site has it, and was named by the Matinecock Indians of Long Island, who do still exist and in fact have their own Facebook page. But it did have to do with stones, anyway. After the area was taken over by Dutch settlers, the name seems to have been spelled various ways: Cinque Singte, Sink Sink, Cinquesingte, Sinck Sinck, Sin Sinct, Sint Sinck and Sin-Sing. But "Sing Sing" is what triumphed in the end.

There is one variant account that, rather ingeniously suggests that the name may actually have come from the name Tsing Tsing, a celebrated governor of a Chinese city, and was brought here by a Dutch trader, who decided to name a random place on the east coast of America in his honor for reasons only he can know. To tell the truth, I don't think it's at all likely, even if it does support my childhood hearing of the name.

Sing Sing, 1855


Anyway, Sing Sing was built in the 1820s. By most accounts, the place had become notorious enough that the Village of Sing Sing where it was established changed its name to Ossining in 1901 to distance itself a little, although one account more charitably has it that it was in order to distinguish between goods made in the town and goods made in the prison. In any case, the supposed etymology of Ossining, according to this more contemporary account is that "ossin" means stone in Chippewa and "ossinnee" or "ossineen" is the plural.

Taking the route of stone upon stone is rapidly leading me to heights I am not qualified to scale. 

But searching around has made me remember why I wanted to look into Sing Sing  right now in the first place. After recently reading Falconer,  learned that Cheever had gotten a lot of his material from teaching writing classes at Sing Sing. Why Sing Sing, I might have asked, if I had thought about it. But that unasked question has been answered. Cheever lived and ultimately died in Ossining.

In a perfect world, I would now link you to my review of Falconer, but that can't happen, because I haven't written it yet. Instead, I'll send you to the blog post Carol Muske-Dukes wrote on Cheever's return to Sing Sing after the book was published.

Or maybe you'd like a link to an article on the other most famous (if fictional) residents of Ossining instead...

 

15 comments:

  1. Seana, this is fascinating. Sing Sing is something I remember hearing in my youth too. I believe my Mother used to use the term (probably as a joking last resort threat, when I was badly misbehaving). But, I too watched several Shirley Temple movies, so maybe that is where I heard it, as well. - Janet

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  2. Janet, I realized after writing this that I was probably not literally five but more like seven or eight when I made the Sing Sing/ China association. But you give me a good chance to do the name dropping that I somehow avoided putting in the blog, which is that my mom and aunt knew Shirley Temple slightly in Santa Monica, though they were a bit older. My mom went to school with her older brother.

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  3. I read this entire post, but I could not get the image of Shirley Temple and Sing Sing out of my mind. The ocmbination is rich with narrative possibilities.

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  4. Sing, Sing, Sing, Peter. At any rate, that Louis Prima song is where Google was constantly trying to lead me in my research.

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  5. I still like the Shirley Temple Sing Sing thing. What would we call it: "Angel Behind Bars"? "Exercise Yard Muppet"?

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  6. I am working at a computer in a state of breakdown, so let's hope this second effort to post this comment works, You're right, of course. Muppets are barred from the prison yard lest they be used as containers for contraband.

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  7. The computer is in a state of breakdown, that is. I am not.

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  8. The Muppets Do Sing Sing--the Musical would be, well, ghastly.

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  9. I'm thinking two deadly violent prison gangs, one called "The Muppets," the other the "Shirley Temples."

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  10. And the Shirleys win because they have the drinks. And can dance. And don't need puppeteers to get the job done.

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  11. They carry shivs under their tutus and pinafores

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  12. It's the tap shoes you want to watch for.

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  13. Every new prisoner lives in fear that someone will sidle up to her in the mess hall or the shower and say: "Shirley wants to take you for a dance." They dream of it, and wake up in cold shivers, the sound of tapping filling their heads.

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  14. On the good ship, Lollypop, it's a nice trip, into bed you drop...

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