Jefferson Market Prison

The peaceful garden you see today occupies the site of a long and contentious history. For nearly a century, this plot of land functioned as a place of confinement. The earliest jail here, built in the nineteenth century, operated alongside a bustling city market and an ornate courthouse. By the early nineteen thirties, that original jail was replaced by an eleven-story structure known as the Women's House of Detention. This building earned a reputation as the world's only Art Deco prison, intended at the time of its design to offer a more humane and modern environment for its inmates.