It was once a major jail in Toronto, but now the 152-year-old facility serves as a hospital administration building.
According to Bridgepoint Active Healthcare – the current owner of the Old Don Jail building – the facility originally had around 180 cells as well as gallows, visiting rooms, private apartments for first governors, classrooms and other jail support spaces.
The jail was permanently shut down in 1977 and it wasn’t until 2013 that the facility re-opened as the Bridgepoint Administration Building.
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Global News got a tour of the building to learn more about its history.
“There were times in the history of the jail when there were multiple inmates in some of the cells because of crowding,” Sean Fraser, director of heritage programs and operations with the Ontario Heritage Trust, said.
“They would have to share space, sleeping in shifts – a whole range of things.”
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For those who misbehaved, they were kept in one of the building’s segregation cells – a completely dark room with no ability to see outside.
“It would have been dark. It would have been cold. You wouldn’t have heard a thing,” Fraser said.
When capital punishment was still practiced in Canada, the building had a separate area that housed gallows and prisoners on ‘death row.’ As sombre as the space was, there are still personal touches on display such as possible markers for five-pin bowling. The last public executions in Canada happened at the Old Don Jail in 1962.
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Retrofitting the 84,000-square-foot facility into a functional administration building required a bit of creativity. For example, in one office two iron cells are covered by a large wooden door.
The historic building now houses administrative and clinic staff as well as educators.
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