Kingston Penitentiary

The Kingston Penn has closed and they have been offering tours of the empty prison for a few weeks through United Way and Habitat for Humanity.  It's been near impossible to get tickets and so we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't be able to go.  But last week one of our friends posted on Facebook that she had a few extra tickets if anyone wanted them.  We snagged those up real quick.

To be honest, I had second thoughts as soon as we got there.  We were informed that they hadn't had a chance to clean the facilities since the inmates had left so we weren't allowed to touch ANYTHING.  Gross.  Tyler then proceeded to inform me that prisons are Public Health nightmares with things like Hepatitis, and who knows what else…ummm, gross.  Hand Sanitizer was readily available, but kids do not listen to the 'no touching' rule.  And this germ-a-phobe was on high alert.  I had the heebie-jeebies before they even started talking about famous inmates like Charles Manson and the Kingston Mills murderers.  Nice.  Great start to the day.

Some things were interesting, but it was mostly just yuck.  So I tried to focus on the architecture.