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From Jail House to Luxury Suites!

We visited the all new Liberty Hotel here in Boston last evening.  Very very very cool!  A must see - www.libertyhotel.com

History:

n his inaugural address in 1843 Boston Mayor Martin Brimmer proposed a new prison to replace the communal Leverett Street Jail built in 1822. The Charles Street Jail, a Boston prison was built by the City of Boston. The City of Boston assumed administrative functions that were normally performed on a County level elsewhere. Because of this unique arrangement, the Mayor of Boston was the pivotal figure in the planning of this facility. During the next five years debate ensued over location and funding for the new jail. In 1848, architect Gridley Bryant, one of the foremost exponents of the Granite Style, and penologist Louis Dwight recommended a prison site in Boston which faced the Charles River Basin. The Charles Street Jail, has much Boston history as it was completed in 1851, has major national architectural significance as the prime institutional example of the Boston Granite Style of the mid-19th Century. The jail became a prototype design which would greatly influence prison construction throughout the United States and abroad. This historic architecture site occupies approximately three acres facing the Charles River and is dominated by the large granite cruciform jail building.

The Charles Street Jail was in operation from 1851 through 1990. However, in 1973 the United States District Court ruled that conditions in the jail violated the constitutional rights of those incarcerated at the site. Following this ruling several renovation plans were developed for the facility but none received the required approval by the Boston City Council. Instead of the planned renovation, a new jail was designed and built a few blocks away on Nashua Street near Leverett Circle. On Memorial Day weekend 1990, the last prisoners were moved from the Charles Street Jail to the new Suffolk County Jail built on Nashua Street.