The Charles Street Jail (built 1851), also known as the Suffolk County Jail, is an infamous former jail (later renovated into a luxury hotel) located at 215 Charles Street,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

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. It is listed in the state and national Registers of Historic Places. The Liberty Hotel, as it is now known, has retained much of its historic structure, including the famed rotunda.

History

Charles Street Jail (Boston, MA) - aerial view

The jail was proposed by

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

Martin Brimmer in his 1843 inaugural address as a replacement for the Leverett Street Jail which had been built in 1822. Normally jails of this sort were county institutions, but, since Boston, then and now, dominates Suffolk County, Mayor Brimmer was a key player in the jail's planning and development. The jail was constructed between 1848 and 1851 to plans by architect

Gridley James Fox Bryant Gridley James Fox Bryant (August 29, 1816 – June 8, 1899), often referred to as G. J. F. Bryant, was a Boston architect, builder, and industrial engineer whose designs "dominated the profession of architecture in ostonand New England." ...

and the advice of prison reformer, Rev. Louis Dwight, who designed it according to the 1790s humanitarian scheme pioneered in England known as the Auburn Plan. The original jail was built in the form of a cross with four wings of Quincy granite extending from a central, octagonal rotunda with a

atrium Atrium may refer to: Anatomy * Atrium (heart), an anatomical structure of the heart * Atrium, the genital structure next to the genital aperture in the reproductive system of gastropods * Atrium of the ventricular system of the brain * Pulmona ...

. The wings allowed segregation of prisoners by sex and category of offense, and thirty arched windows, each 33 feet high, provided ventilation and natural light. The original jail contained 220 granite cells, each . Over the years, the jail housed a number of famous inmates including John White Webster, James Michael Curley,

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of I ...

, and

Sacco and Vanzetti Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a ...

. Suffragists imprisoned for protests when President Woodrow Wilson visited Boston in February 1919 included Josephine Collins (Framingham), Betty Connolly (West Newton),

Martha Foley Martha Foley (March 21, 1897 – September 5, 1977) cofounded ''Story'' magazine in 1931 with her husband Whit Burnett. She achieved some celebrity by introducing notable authors through the magazine such as J. D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams and ...

(Dorchester), Frances Fowler (Brookline), Nellie Gross (Mrs. J. Irving Gross, Boston), and Rosa Heinzen Roewer (Belmont). They were imprisoned for eight (8) days. Also imprisoned were World War II prisoners of war from the German submarines and . The commanding officer of the latter U-boat, who died in the jail, was the brother of

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...

rocket scientist

Ernst Steinhoff Ernst August Wilhelm Steinhoff (February 11, 1908 – December 2, 1987) was a rocket scientist and member of the " von Braun rocket group", at the Peenemünde Army Research Center (1939–1945). Ernst Steinhoff saw National Socialist (Nazi) ...

. In 1973, the

US District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

ruled that, because of overcrowding, the jail violated the constitutional rights of the prisoners housed there. Nonetheless, the prison did not close until 1990. On Memorial Day of that year, prisoners were moved to the new

Nashua Street Jail The Nashua Street Jail, also known as the Suffolk County Jail, is a jail located in Boston, Massachusetts. It opened on Memorial Day in 1990 as a replacement for the overcrowded Charles Street Jail The Charles Street Jail (built 1851), also kno ...

on Nashua Street. The former Charles Street Jail building is now owned by Massachusetts General Hospital. It was redesigned by

Cambridge Seven Associates Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. (stylized as CambridgeSeven, and sometimes as C7A) is an American architecture firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Buildings designed by the firm have included academic, museum, exhibit, hospitality, transpo ...

and Ann Beha Architects, and reopened in the summer of 2007 as a 300-room luxury hotel with a number of high-end bars and restaurants. The Liberty Hotel, as it is now known, has retained much of the building's historic structure, including the famed rotunda. A 16-story guest room addition during construction was designed to approximate the existing structure around it.

Former inmates

Elmer "Trigger" Burke Elmer "Trigger" Burke (1917 – January 9, 1958) was a notorious hitman during the mid-to-late 1940s. He was brought up by his older brother, Charlie. In 1941, he was sent to reform school, but later had his sentence cut for joining the army, where ...

- mob hit man. Escaped from the jail following his arrest for murder. * Josephine Collins - suffragist * John J. Divivo - Hijacker/murderer. Hung himself in the jail. * William M. Forgrave - temperance activist turned stock broker. Convicted of larceny. Allegedly ran a bookmaking operation in the jail during the reign of Sheriff John F. Dowd * William Monroe Trotter - civil rights activist *

Shunsuke Tsurumi was a Japanese philosopher, historian, and sociologist. Tsurumi Shunsuke was born in Tokyo in 1922. In 1937, his father sent him to study in the United States, where he enrolled at the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. At the age of 1 ...

References

* George M Cushing, ''Great Buildings of Boston a Photographic Guide'', Courier Dover Publications, 1982, page 42. .
Massachusetts General Hospital history

External links

The Liberty Hotel

Cambridge Seven Associates Project Page

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Defunct prisons in Massachusetts Jails on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Government buildings in Boston West End, Boston Government buildings completed in 1851 Jails in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Boston 1851 establishments in Massachusetts

History

Former inmates

See also

References

Further reading

External links