Restaurant at Jail to open next week

Reported at Salem Patch, the restaurant at the Jail, The Great Escape, will open Monday.

When I saw this in the open house, I had wondered if this would be the restaurant.  I seem to have guessed right.

Despite the guy from Northfields and the associated controversy over the green space, a restaurant operator came through after all. 

I’m not sure how they’ll do long-term, and I don’t know if I’ll afford to eat there myself, but I wish them luck.  Hats off to New Boston for their tenacity in seeing this through.

Barbed Wire is Gone at the Salem Jail!

 

As promised, the barbed-wire fencing around the Salem Jail has finally been removed!  (A second, inner wall, was partially dismantled when the Jail was closed and demolished when the renovation began.)

In other news, the new courthouse is now easily seen from the same corner:

Salem Jail’s Open House

There was never a time during the Salem Jail’s existence that people would be waiting to get in to the Jail, but it happened yesterday during a scheduled open house.

There were about 30-50 people in line at any one moment and about an equal number of people in the Jail itself.  Several hundred people likely went through.  (Relatively few people visited the other buildings in the open house, the jailer’s building and the (reconstructed) carriage house.)

There wasn’t much overlap between the areas we were allowed to visit in the open house, and the parts of the Jail that Dan Stanwood took me through two years ago.  The open house took us through the eastern side of the building facing the parking lot;  the tour was mostly on the west side.  (Dan offered to take my party through more of the facility but we were short on time and I had had enough video to make the show out of anyway.)

The front entrance hasn’t changed much from then:

Now:

The pay phone pedestal is still there!  If you’re observant, you may have noted the white metal wheelchair lift in the old photo.  Inmates with disabilities were brought in with the lift (and stayed on the first floor as the rest of the building was not accessible.)

Today, there’s a ramp, or what appears to be one.

Inside, one of the old cells near the entrance has been preserved:

This will be part of a small museum.

The new Jail has an elevator:

Reportedly, the hook on the ceiling of the dining area upon which people were hanged, is still there in one of the units:

One of the units:

In a few months this could be someone’s home.

My Flickr stream of the old Salem Jail.

My Flickr stream of the Salem Jail renovation, including the open house.

How Big is Monopoly Park?

UPDATE:  Square footage for Lappin Park added—see below.

So how big is the Salem Jail greenspace?

The opening image in this post is from the original blueprint that Sue Cranney provided me of the bypass road project at St. Peter St.  St. Peter St. is on the left.  Howard St. is on the right.  The Jail and cemetery are on the bottom of the image.  You can clearly see the existing access road (to the old sally port) at bottom center.

The new access road that NBV is planning to build will cross the greenspace in the middle, exiting onto Bridge St.  (An exit at St. Peter St. was considered but quickly rejected.)

I should note, very strongly, that this blueprint reflects the greenspace as MassHighway planned it.  It is in no way an “official” plan for the space.  I imagine NBV will be forthcoming with that very soon.  I only hope I get an electronic copy, such as a PDF, next time around.

“Monopoly Park”, also, is not the official name although I’m going to do my best to make it so!

These are my estimated boundaries of the green space.  I used the blueprint to get measurements.  According to the scale 1 inch corresponds to 80 feet, and my pedometer confirms it, as walking from the corner at St. Peter to the corner of Veterans Riverway @ Bridge St measures about 250 feet;  the blueprint says 240, but that is assuming a totally straight-line walk.  It’s likely close enough.

For measurement purposes I had to split the space into two triangles, calculate the area of each and sum the areas together.  I used the first calculator I found, CSG Area Calculator.

I calculated 35,476  sq. ft. for Monopoly Park. 

Summarizing what I’ve found so far:

• Armory Park: 21,316 sq. ft.
• Gonyea Park: 23,452 sq. ft
• Lappin Park: 11,480 sq. ft.
• “Monopoly Park”: 35,476 sq. ft.

By comparison with the other two three parks, “Monopoly Park” is no tiny space!

The likelihood of Armory Park being reclaimed for parking is nil.  Gonyea Park could conceivably be reclaimed for parking by some developer, but this would deprive the whole neighborhood of their greenspace.  As it is, it is a very small space to serve what is now a very dense area with the nearby Jefferson complex.

If I lived there and a developer wanted to make it a parking lot I would complain no less—and more loudly—than the neighbors!

One of the most successful greenspaces in downtown, one I didn’t visit for this post, is Lappin Park, home of the famous Bewitched Statue.  It is popular at all hours.

It’s half the size of Armory Park, making it the smallest park downtown.  It was carved out of a vacant lot left when the building that was once there burned in the early 1970’s.

Lappin Park

To my experience, that had been a vacant lot up until Lappin Park was built.  There was never any (successful) consideration towards making it a parking lot though in many ways parking was an anxiety even then to Salem.

It was never a parking lot.

Do we want to make it into parking?  I’m sure Samantha’s statue could be accommodated somehow.  Still want to?  We could probably squeeze 15 spaces in there.  Why not?

As alienated as I am with the neighborhood groups, they and I both agree we need to keep all the green space we can have.

“Monopoly Park” is no little dinky greenspace that people will miss.

Is the Salem Jail Greenspace really that small?

Proponents of a parking lot for the Salem Jail green space all say nearly the same thing:  “It’s a dinky little space near cars and traffic!  Why do you want it green?”

Indeed it doesn’t look like much now, littered by construction on the north end (a backhoe was busy laying down sewer pipes, behind the black van in the photo, this afternoon) and that same van and many other vehicles parking on the south side, “my” side.

But is this space really that small?

I set out to take measurements to find out.  I used my feet and a cheap pedometer:

This is a cheap pedometer one can find at Wal-Mart and like stores.  The McDonalds chain was selling ones like these a few years ago as sort of an adult Happy Meal.

This one, like most, can be calibrated to your step size and show your miles walked;  I use it to make sure I’m really walking that far when I go to Salem Willows in the season (which can’t start soon enough!)

To set a pedometer like this, the best way is to walk a known distance, say a city block, several times and average out the number of steps taken.  Then divide the distance in feet by steps taken and multiply by 12 to get your step size to enter into the device.

Since there are few spots in Salem with mile markers accessible to pedestrians, I used Daft Logic’s Google Maps Distance Calculator to get the distance of a block I walk every day, the stretch from Essex St. from Washington Square to New Liberty.  It’s about 446 feet, from the Philips Library corner to Armory Park outside the PEM entrance. 

My pedometer and my notes say I walked this in 160 steps, so that corresponds to 33-1/2 inches.  Can’t put this into my pedometer so 33 inches is good enough.  Neither it, nor my feet, are precision instruments.

Combine this with high-school math and some walking to get a rough measurement of square footage.

I’m not a civil engineer or a surveyor, but this should be close enough to get some idea.  Many people can’t visualize what square footage really means and this is a good way to visualize it.

I visited several parks in my neighborhood and compare them against the Jail green space, which people have suggested be named “Monopoly Park” (A name I would enthusiastically endorse!)

Is Monopoly Park really big enough to be a “real” park?

You might be surprised.

Final Thoughts on Jail Parking and the Greenspace

Final followup, I hope, to the ongoing Salem Jail Parking drama.  The Salem News gave an account of last Tuesday’s meeting, and talked about it some more.

Any time the neighborhood associations get involved in discussions like this, I’m unhappy.

I say this even though I was in substantial agreement with those opposed to the parking plan. 

Had New Boston Ventures came to the meeting with their original 39-space plan, I would have opposed it as well.

But NBV proposed what I thought was a very interesting compromise:  12 spaces and an access road.  The access road is required by the fire department in any event.

During the day, NBV suggested that the new spaces could be used by the elderly housing complex in which I live next door.  We have a serious parking problem.  Whatever my views are on over-dependence on the automobile in downtown, there’s an undeniable need for visitor spaces in my building and the adjoining building next door.  You can’t expect an oxygen delivery van to park in Museum Place.

I’d hoped that the committee would take that under consideration and table NBV’s compromise proposal until the next meeting.  The neighbors would vent and rant a bit but that’d be fine.

I had wanted it to work out—having green space, parking and the restaurant all at once.  Maybe it wasn’t possible but no harm in wanting it!

But that did not happen.  Mike Sosnowski had come into the meeting against the idea and went out against it.  The neighborhood groups were a big reason why.

I’d expected the meeting to have fewer attendees than I expected.  I had thought this was a matter for my immediate neighborhood, the Bridge St. Neck association, and perhaps the few urban planning experts amongst us.

Over 100 people showed up, most all from various neighborhood groups around the city.   They all spoke out against the proposal, whether they lived nearby or not. Despite what the News reported, there was no turn of opinion there.  All came in against, all left against.

Low point—angriest point for me—is when a gentleman from the Northfields spoke out against the proposal.

That’s not what I was angry about;  he had expressed many of the concerns I had had as well.  If he had a view of the Jail from across the river, he may have even had a point.  One point I’ve come back to is the great vista of the Jail from both northbound and southbound Bridge St.  It is beautiful!  I can only imagine what it looks like from the river and am looking forward to finding out when spring finally arrives.

But this guy started talking about how my building (and the building next door) didn’t want the restaurant and any commercial development. 

He didn’t ask us.  I know I didn’t coordinate my talking points with others from my building, but I wouldn’t pretend to speak for them.

He of Northfields, likely of a mortgage with five or six zeros in it, dictating to me and my neighbors what we think.

I was livid!

And he’s wrong about commercial development.  Next door to me is 10 Federal.

10 Federal has been a commercial property for the 60 years it existed;  at first for New England Telephone, then NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, Verizon and now a renovated private office building.

Ironically, it’s very visible coming down the Veteran’s Riverway from the north.

The associations are all of a piece, they all think like this man.

And my councilor has no choice but to go along.  I’m very frustrated with him but ultimately I’m sympathetic—he has an impossible position to govern from.

He answers to the Downtown, Salem Common, Bridge St. Neck and Federal St. Associations.  I’m certain that once the Jail is occupied, there will be the Salem Jail Neighborhood Association. 

My greatest fear is that they can and will all speak for me, without actually needing or appreciating my input.  It isn’t as though people in public housing have an “investment” in Downtown.

And that Mike is just going along, out of necessity.

[Note:  I had posted an earlier draft online that was a bit too vituperative overall and particularly unfair to my councilor Mike.  My frustrations with him have been long pent up because I have never been able to have that hard, though productive, conversation that clears the air.  Perhaps we’ll have one sometime. 

PS:   Despite speculation on Salemweb, I doubt that Mr. Treadwell was the guy who spoke—Mr. Treadwell is an expert who would have well known the exact makeup of my neighborhood and that it was once all commercial.]

Salem Jail Parking Proposal Apparently Dead

The City Council met tonight to discuss New Boston Venture’s proposal to reconfigure the greenspace triangle at St. Peter, Bridge and Howard Sts for additional restaurant parking.

The proposal is apparently dead.

Rather than give my opinions again, here are my notes.  No doubt the Salem News will report this tomorrow;  there was already a letter in today’s News opposing the proposal.

I couldn’t hear everybody who spoke—nearly everyone from the neighborhood groups showed up, but the important points are here as best as I could hear and write down.

The original proposal brought by New Boston Ventures (NPV) was for 37 parking spaces carved out of the greenspace near the Jail wall.

NPV came back with a compromise proposal of 13 parking spaces and a turnaround that would be on a new access road from Bridge St.

There are two restaurants currently interested in the space.  They have indicated that additional parking is a prerequisite for their interests.

NPV talked a little about the sidewalk that bisects the current greenspace and will intersect the access road.  Some thought was given to a crushed stone sidewalk recycled from the original granite blocks from the Jail.

NPV expressed great appreciation for the effort that the city, the Council, and the SRA have put in to make the Salem Jail project work.  Everyone agrees it has become a beautiful building and NPV is happy with their efforts so far.

The head of the Planning Dept. (Lynn Duncan, IIRC) has been inside the restaurant space.  It is on a second level with a river view.  She believes the parking plan is much improved.

If there is no restaurant, the space will be made into housing, 3 units.

But the City would much prefer the restaurant;  she is concerned that if the Jail becomes all private housing, that will threaten or make non-viable the small Jail museum that is in the current plans.

One member of the committee (couldn’t make out whom) talked bout the spaces lost from Morency Manor use.  [For a long while, while the Jail property was vacant, visitors to Morency Manor were allowed short term parking in the Jail lot.  These were used by VNA’s, relatives, and other visitors who needed to stop by briefly.]

NPV proposed their lot to be used by Morency Manor visitors during the daytime hours (2 hr. parking.)

Councilor O’Keefe:  The access road must be there on Bridge St. due to fire regulations.  That is not negotiable.

Counicilor Pelletier: Are there condos [in the Jail]?

NPV:  No.  Apartments for now but if phase 2 is approved, the new building will be condos.  Because of a complicated arrangment involving tax breaks for historic properties, this was necessary for the project to go through.

Question from the committee regarding National Grid’s transformer—why did that take three months to settle?

Transformer siting--National Grid changed their mind on NBV’s placement of the distribution transformer on site.   National Parks Service rejected this placement, due to the sensitive granite wall around the Jail.  National Grid then wanted to place their vault with other utilities, water, sewer, etc. and NBV thought that was infeasible.  This went on for some time.  The morning of this meeting [tonight],  National Grid agreed to a compromise placement suitable to NBV, NG and NPS.

A committee member had a question:  Is the road considered a private access road on what is public land.

Rules were suspended so that the public comment period would take place.  Nearly half the room took their place to speak [including my colleague Charlie Reardon, and myself] so I didn’t get everyone and couldn’t.

The public comment was unanimous—No parking!  The points came down to three.

1) Green space is very very important to Salemmites.  No one wanted to lose any.  People were very concerned over the original  37-space proposal, and very few people, if any, were mollified by the compromise, although people appreciated that NBV tried to change it.  The quote of the night came from one woman:  With the recent reconstruction of Bridge St., and the Leslie’s Retreat park space along the North River to the south, Salem has its own “Emerald Necklace”, like the famous green space of parks, rivers and walks in Boston writ small.

2) Why does a restaurant need additional spaces when there are already spaces available during the evening hours?  Moreover, many thriving restaurants manage to survive without storefront parking.  One committee member put it:  “Salem doesn’t have a parking problem, it has a walking problem.”

3) If the restaurant can give up 13 spaces during the day to Morency Manor, spaces that it would use for delivery trucks and etc., perhaps it didn’t need the spaces after all.

Mike Sosnowski had the closing words before the vote.  He had been present during the long planning process for the Bypass Road, some 35 years of effort, and the word [a new word to many of us at the time] was mitigation.  That green space was mitigation for the road, amongst many other compromises that needed to be made.

Mike, continuing:  I respect NBV very much for what they have done so far.  But it is not worth losing that green space to keep the restaurant.

NBV:  Offered and requested to withdraw their proposal.

The committee voted to give a negative recommendation to the full Council. 

Salem Jail Progress—and Parking?

The Salem Jail project is progressing with coverage in the Salem Gazette, “Old Salem Jail Moves Towards Reopening”, and the Salem News, which is reporting on the developers’ recent proposal to reconfigure the greenspace at the Veterans’ Riverway for parking

This is the area:

At a recent community meeting (that I wasn’t at), the developers want to reconfigure at least part of this space for parking.  Otherwise, they say, the restaurant long proposed and long desired, won’t happen.

Quote from the News:

"The way we'd envision it is to retain a large percentage of the green space and have it landscaped in such a way that it's attractive," said David Goldman, a principal at New Boston Ventures.

Goldman said the parking lot would be an important selling point to lure in a restaurant for the first floor, a requirement the city imposed to keep the historic building publicly accessible.

New Boston Ventures has wanted this from the start.  They had wanted to configure this space in July 2008, when the bypass road was nearing completion and had gone to high-level officials in MassHighway (now MassDOT.)

The neighbors will be involved;  my colleague Charlie Reardon was at that meeting and suggested parking for the senior housing (45 St. Peter/109 Bridge) across from the Jail.

People in my building have long wanted more parking, and one neighbor of mine even proposed the greenspace as parking lot well before Charlie did.

This is nuts. 

That greenspace changes everything about the new road, moderating its influence and making a natural anchor and focal point for the immediate St. Peter St. neighborhood.  It won’t be long before New Boston looks at the plans again and decides they want the whole area for parking.  Who could be against parking?

But despite what the Salem News thinks in its editorial, this will happen anyway.  No one wants to lose the restaurant, or incur anger from senior citizens.  (And if they did lose the restaurant we can count on the Salem News to blame the city anyway.)

First post and first storm of 2010

First storm of 2010 is continuing as I speak.  5.5” as of noon today.  Construction continues at the Salem Jail and the building is just about enclosed.  New windows have already been installed.  The building looks better and better every day.

Update:  9” as of 11 AM Sunday the 3rd.  The snow is forecast to continue into the evening.  There could be 10”-12” by Monday morning.

Salem Jail Video (replay)

This is an old video of mine, but I like to promote it every now and then.  It’s a shortened version of a 60-minute video I produced on the Salem Jail, shortly before it was sold to developers.

There are other videos from people who’ve broken into the Jail, but I feel mine is the only one with any respect for the building and what it really was.  They didn’t hang witches here.  And it wasn’t a place for “psychic experiments”, either.

I’d love to have the whole video online someday.  For now it airs on SATV occasionally.

Salem Jail Renovation Continues

The Salem Jail renovation is moving along.  The whole interior of the main building is now completely gutted, in what appears to be the busiest week for the project since it started.

More photos on my Salem Jail Renovation Flickr stream.

“Walls Do Not a Prison Make…”

“..nor iron bars a cage.”

The bars on the window of the Jail are being removed this week.

For the first time, you can look into the building!

Looking forward to seeing the fence come down, one hopes soon.

Salem Jail Renovation

Despite the fears of some that the Jail project was stalled, the renovations are moving apace.  The old concrete stairwells in the main building have been demolished.

The building is being cleaned:

It already looks better!

2nd Anniversary for A Salem Blog

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of this blog.  I started blogging a construction project in my neighborhood, Salem's Last Road, and it’s fitting that I am now blogging another construction project right next door.  (Salem Jail Renovation—Finally!)

The groundbreaking was yesterday.  I wanted much to be there and take video, but I had SATV business get in the way.

Whatever I think of the project, it’ll be beautiful.  It already looks better now that the old inner fence is gone.  I’m looking forward to the day the barbed wire goes away.  The Jail and the small pocket park between Howard and St. Peter complement each other very well.

Unfortunately, as my blog continues, another blog I regularly read is no more.  Salem Politics is defunct;  its proprietors took a leave of absence for health reasons, and now the blog is gone.

They were the blog that North Shore Sunday confused with mine in their story on blogging.  It was an embarrassing mistake but the proprietors of Salem Politics were nice about it and hoped I’d get some traffic out of it.

There was no love lost between Salem Politics and the denizens of Salemweb, but I’ll still miss the blog.  There is a crying need for local journalism, yet what we have faces an uncertain future.  I’ve enjoyed writing this blog, but I’m not a journalist.

But as long as I’m in Salem, I’m still blogging.  I’ll love it if my third anniversary was a blog about the new Salem Depot, or the courthouse or even a new playground on the Common for kids with disabilities.

Salem Jail Renovation—Finally!

After three years, after many delays, I was wondering if the Salem Jail project would actually happen.  Three years ago, I got a notice in my building, which uses the Jail for overflow parking, that the lot would be closed.  Obviously not, as this picture in late March shows:

We got another notice:

When I attended the last meeting of the Planning Board in March, people were optimistic that the deal would close.  Was it for real this time?

Apparently, yes!

As also reported by Globe North, New Boston Ventures has finally closed on the Salem Jail.  There will be apartments, which could be converted to condos after five years, a restaurant (one restaurant, not multiple as the Globe implies) and a museum.

I’ve posted about the Jail before, with very much mixed feelings ("Salem Jail developer switching from condos to apartments", "Salem Jail Visit" and "Salem Jail Update".)

I even filmed the inside of the Jail!

(By the way, I have asked Dave Gauthier to reschedule the full documentary I did for air on SATV.  Since it is evergreen programming for Salem, I gave SATV perpetual permission to rerun it at various times, including Halloween, and now.)

I’m expecting and fearing my future neighbors may be insecure and obsessed with historical value;  some wise-ass on the Salem News discussion boards already explained that the Jail residents would see the bypass road, apartment buildings, and my own elderly apartment complex.

Thanks.  I’m proud to have lowered property values in Salem since 1963, the Common since 1985 and downtown since 1995!

Despite that, I have no animosity towards the developers.  I’m glad the building is being preserved;  it became one of my favorite places when I filmed it last spring, despite its sad history.  We’ve seen so many promising projects die in Salem because we had to have them perfect when we could not possibly get that, that I’m glad to see one project go forward in this economy (which is not over the hump by any measure.)

I had a nice chat with the developers after the planning board meeting, and an invitation to stop by the construction trailer to get permission for pictures.  I’m planning on recording the project as it unfolds, and scheduling a site visit with the Salem Commission on Disabilities when the project progresses to completion.

Winter sets in

Salem Winter Storm December 19th-21st 2008-12-21 011, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

Winter has fully set in. It would have been a bitter experience for inmates in the Jail, especially with only kitchen fires to keep warm. The top floor would have been especially brutal; that floor was occupied by women inmates who would have done the cooking, cleaning and other housekeeping tasks around the Jail.

Development of the Jail is still on hold; the developers have asked for yet another extension. Next spring will mark the 4th year since the property was originally to be closed upon.

Jail project gets extension

Summer and fall came and went without the promised close on financing and start of the Jail project.  Now it’s delayed again:

SALEM — The Boston developer chosen three years ago to transform the old Salem Jail into residences, a restaurant and a jail exhibit has been given another extension by the Salem Redevelopment Authority.

The deadline for New Boston Ventures to close on the sale of the St. Peter Street site has been moved from this month to the end of February, with construction scheduled to start by the end of March.

It’s been over three years since the Salem Housing Authority sent letters to us on the projected closing of the project, and the end of parking in the small lot next to the Jail.  People still park there, and the old Jail continues to rot away.

If the project dies for good, as is likely in this state, we’ll never know if there was a better developer out there.

Credit crunch hangs up revamp of jail - SalemNews.com,

A Visit to Salem Jail

My video tour of the Salem Jail is complete. I've put an excerpt up on YouTube, as seen above. It will air on SATV Channel 3 in the next few weeks.

Thanks to Ron Mailionek and Dan Stanwood from the City, and thanks to my colleagues from the Salem Commission on Disabilities for their help, and to SATV for providing the equipment.

Salem Jail update

[Rendition of the Salem Jail looking east down St. Peter St., from the SRA meeting in February]

The Salem Jail project that I've written about before has gone before the Planning Board. New Boston Development officials went before the board tonight to present their updated plan.

No surprises for the most part; they reiterated what had gone before at the SRA meeting in February.

It's been mentioned before that some units will be marketed as apartments to take advantage of federal funding. These will be in the "old" part of the Jail. There will be a "new" part of the jail in the existing parking lot at St. Peter, part of a new "parking structure". (Not mentioned, but I presume the old barn will be taken down.)

One member of the board asked about affordable housing. There will be one affordable unit.

That's one more than I thought would be there!

I'm not surprised. The SRA doesn't need low-income folks downtown. The Jefferson was supposed to be for "up-and-coming, affluent and hip" people too.

There'll be one parking space per unit per downtown zoning, which has been extended to the Jail. This means no families.

(I would like to see Federal St. zoned for no resident parking--horses only! But another post, please.)

There'll still be a restaurant. So they say. The rep from New Boston wasn't going to speculate further.

There is one last round of approvals from the city before construction starts. I didn't hear this part of the meeting very well, but I had thought I heard that this would come up at the regular SRA meeting on the 9th; not sure why it would come before the SRA again.

UPDATE: At the SRA meeting of April 9th, it was mentioned that the closing is scheduled for June. The project will be permitted in July and construction will start in August.

Salem Jail Visit

Salem Jail Visit 009, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

I've been very busy with four different projects for people, but I was able to arrange for several of us from the Commission on Disabilities to get a tour of the Salem Jail . The city's Dan Stanwood, local expert, led us through part of the facility for an hour.

It was a fascinating tour. The building is foreboding, as befits its original purpose as a prison (and execution site), and I don't want to diminish the experiences of the prisoners there, but it looked like a handsome building, the state of the art for its time.

It's remarkable, if horrifying, that the building was still in use as late as 1991! Mr. Stanwood knew and spoke with quite a number of corrections officers who had been working at the facility up until it closed.

I had a video camera with me, since Mike Sosnowksi asked me to tape the tour. I have not looked at the footage yet but it will air on SATV sometime soon and I may put a segment of the tour up on the web.

I have mixed emotions: The Jail had outlived its usefulness and was dangerous for both inmates and officers alike in later years.

But as I've written before, I absolutely hate the idea of the Jail becoming condos. I hate that Salem has to live off its history, off of things that other people made and left behind so that arrogant yuppie property-owners can have "history" to check off on their property values.

When I applied to move in to the building across the street (as seen in the picture above), I was told by a Salem Housing Authority representative that when that building was open for elderly and disabled tenants in 1982, almost everyone wanted to be on "the other side" of the building (the one facing away from the Jail) and it was feared, jokingly, that the building would tip over!

The shoe is on the other foot and I am bitter. Now the Jail could be "desirable", "hip", "up and coming" and most important, "historic", er. "Historic". My building will now be "undesirable" and "low income". ("Why are you here, the old people don't have jobs to go to!" "Can't we just redevelop and move you to Lynn?")

I am SO looking forward to hearing that!

Resources:

My Flickr set on the Jail

Historic Salem's page on the Jail

Shaun O'Boyle's photos of the Jail