Wednesday 27 January 2010

'The Joint'



The Gatehouse is the most visible reminder of the B.C. Penitentiary in New Westminster. The prison was shut down in 1980 and eventually all but three buildings were levelled. The prison was depressing but at least it had character. The housing tract on the site now is depressing and has no character.

On Sunday drives our family would often pass by here. It was such an ominous looking place. My naive boyhood brain wouldn't have had anything but a movie version idea of what it was like inside but it sure did make an impression on me.

There was one other prison smack in the middle of a Lower Mainland residential neighbourhood, Oakalla Prison Farm in Burnaby. It's gone without a trace and wherever the prisons are now they aren't anywhere I travel, I've never seen them.


2 comments :

Anonymous said...

I googled Woodlands chool. It reminds me of the home off the coast of France, except there they've even found bodies that were buried. That kind of cruelty, especially against the weak and helpless, just doesn't compute.

WV: gynco

Hilda said...

The gatehouse looks more like the entrance to a castle rather than a prison. Fantastic.