An article in World magazine suggests a use for York County’s 1906 lockup now on the sales block.
World reports that Boston’s 18th-century Charles Street Jail is being renovated into a luxury hotel.
The city worked up a $150 million bill to convert the prison, once home to anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, into a hotel…
Architects worked catwalks and barred windows into the design.
The hotel’s new name, according to the magazine?
The Liberty Hotel.
York might not support another luxury hotel, but one can imagine the conversion of the old Chestnut Street county prison, an 84-cell fortress abandoned since 1979, into apartments or condos for upscale 20- and 30-somethings.
They might think it cool to say they live in, say, Independence Day condos.
One could even watch the York Revs play from its upper blocks, er, floors.
Other prison-related posts and photographs:
- Wanted: ‘Inmates’ to fill old York County prison
- If Boston can turn prison in hotel, York can …
- York’s Chestnut Street fortress bad symbol of York’s past
- For sale: 100-year-old fortress-like prison
- Old York County jail on endangered list
- Prison listing brings back food loaf memories
- ‘There were only so many cells in that old stone prison
Welcome to York Town Square, 8 years of daily posts about journalism and history, topics that can easily become plodding and self important. My goal is to keep this blog fun and accessible. And I try to say something in each post. I welcome your comments and respond to every one you write. Please contact me at 
