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| Notoriously violent Maryland House of Correction comes down |
| By baltimoresun.com - Jonathan Pitts |
| Published: 01/20/2014 |
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The long arm of a crane towered above the old brick structure, a wrecking ball dangling below from a cable. A crowd of about 100 looked on, counting down. A machinery operator pulled a lever and the ball fell with a crash, signaling the end of a long, often frightful chapter of Maryland history. Workers from Berg Demolition Inc. had bashed a hole in the roof of the Maryland House of Correction, the notoriously violent prison Gov. Martin O'Malley ordered closed in 2007 after two guards were stabbed, one fatally. The teardown of the 134-year-old building, which stood empty for more than six years, had begun. To many on the scene, the moment brought a sense of closure, if not elation. "This had to happen," said Howard Lyles, a retired corrections official who served as the prison's warden during the early 1980s. "The building was completely outmoded. It was too expensive to operate. I mean, what else were you going to do with it?" For decades, everyone from corrections officers to politicians had agreed the Jessup prison — which was designed in the mid-1800s for petty offenders and opened on Jan. 1, 1879 — lacked even the basic design elements that make modern houses of correction safe. In that regard, it resembled the Baltimore City Detention Center, the city jail where a corruption scandal that came to light last year is still in the spotlight amid calls for the jail's replacement. Read More. |
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