This bar has bars

I t's hard to imagine the city's swanky new Liberty Hotel was once the notorious Charles Street Jail. Entering the building once heralded a miserable night behind bars.

Now, a night in the Clink - the hotel's spacious lobby bar - is the place to be, if the throngs of scenesters recently packing the joint is any indication.

The Liberty's punning motto? "Be captivated."

Clink's spaciousness is the opposite of incarceration. It seems that most people in the bar stop at some point during their conversations and look up at the huge, soaring rotunda, with its windows and crisscrossed wooden beams. Elsewhere, other original features are incorporated into the design: prison railings line the walkways, bars still cover some windows. Downstairs, the Lyons Group has opened Alibi, a dimly lounge that retains the jail's original brickwork and metal cell doors. Captivated, indeed.

If these walls could talk, you think. What misery and madness would be heard? Of course, more than one Bostonian has noted that many of the inmates were there for drunkenness. The irony is a bit sobering, but only a bit. Other one-time prisoners included suffragettes and World War II prisoners from a German U-boat.

A recent crowd certainly looked more comfortable. Patrons sipped glasses of wine poured from 150 ml or 250 ml beakers you last saw in science class. An Elk Cove Pinot Gris from Oregon ($15 for 250ml) was on the menu, as was a dry hopped Liberty Ale ($6), made by San Francisco's Anchor Brewing to commemorate the night Paul Revere was briefly imprisoned.

"We've been watching the building for months and we couldn't wait to see the inside," says Samantha McGann, 32, who lives in Charlestown and works in Government Center. She dropped into Clink with a couple of friends after work to take a look. "It's kinda creepy being in a jail," she said, turning her head upward, "and spectacular, too."

Clink, 215 Charles St., Boston. 617-224-4004. libertyhotel.com