New hotel takes liberties with old jail's inhumanity

IN RESPONSE to Kevin Cullen's Oct. 1 column, "Locked-in perspective" (City & Region), I understand that it is sometimes prudent and savvy to give buildings with illustrious histories new life and new "meaning." However, how that was orchestrated at the new Liberty Hotel is unconscionable. Capitalizing on jail lingo for restaurant and bar naming, as well as sorting wine vintages, is an affront to anyone who had the misfortune of serving time in the building in its old incarnation.

Let's face it, the Charles Street Jail was a blight on Boston, a building that brought shame and embarrassment to many; one that should have been torn down, not "recaptured." Many people felt vindicated when Judge Garrity deemed the facility a violation of the civil rights of inmates serving time there.

Cullen's column didn't come close to capturing the ugliness and inhumanity practiced behind the walls of the Charles Street Jail. Men were often put in the "hole" (the isolation unit that was literally without light) and given only one meal a day for as long as 25 days and were issued a bucket that was to serve as a "bathroom." The pigeons that used to fly around the facility were a clear pronouncement of its filth and squalor.

I am not speaking out against buildings being converted and put to better use; rather I take issue with the blatant insensitivity and truly unnecessary marketing folly of the hotel. It would seem more appropriate to focus on what its new name (Liberty) represents - freedom and rights, precisely what was not afforded the men of the Charles Street Jail.

LANNY KUTAKOFF
Auburndale

The writer is executive director of Partakers Inc., a prisoner rehabilitation group.