The prison opened in 1935 as the New York State Vocational Institution, with buildings designed by Alfred Hopkins, an estate architect with a sideline in prisons such as Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Hopkins had also designed Woodbourne Correctional Facility and Wallkill Correctional Facility for the state. All three were designed on progressive principles, reflected a concern for aesthetics and a sense of places, and had no surrounding walls or fences.
