I FINALLY got to see Vaughan Street Jail this past weekend through Doors Open Winnipeg. I love that I had a couple girlfriends as interested in that type of thing as I was.
I have always had a fascination with old “insane asylums”, prisons, and old buildings with a story. I remember one time when we were on a family trip, I made my dad get as close to Selkirk’s Hospital for Mental Diseases, just so I could sit and stare at it and imagine what or who was inside; Of course, as a kid I only knew the things I saw on TV or on movies, and I’m sure I imagined it to be something that it probably wasn’t ….. that fascination about old buildings still holds true for me to this day.
(BTW, Thanks dad for turning around and letting me just sit & watch the hospital … also for pulling over for me to take photos of those cows!!)
This past weekend, I learned a little bit about what things were actually like in some of those “old buildings with a story” – for example a woman could get ‘tossed in the clink’ for merely talking back to her husband, or disobeying him!! CRAZY RIGHT?? Also, I learned that depressed or demented people were actually bound to a cold concrete floor (with a thin mattress) in the basement of the jail, with leather straps (pictures of the steal staples that were set in the concrete below), and then they had bread crumbs sprinkled around their head to encourage rodents to chew at them… – just in case you weren’t “crazy” when you got there…… ?
Although I find it so interesting to learn about what things were like “back then”, I had a hard time truly absorbing all the information offered on the tours, not only because it was A LOT of info, but because I was so engulfed in all the visuals…. the textures, the peeling paint, the shapes, the details of the architecture…. so much to see and absorb… too much really… so of course, I took A LOT of photos… Mostly of all the things I wanted to touch (but didn’t- as instructed, or becasue they were just too gross)… So here are some of those photos of how that old jail “feels like” (or would feel like 😉 ) …..
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