The Haunted Liberty Hotel
Posted: 10.04.2024 | Updated: 10.04.2024
Grand hotels are highly desirable locations for travelers and as important a choice as a final destination. For over a century before the birth of The Liberty Hotel in Boston, however, people tried their hardest to get out of or never set foot in the imposing gray structure that stands tall in the heart of the Beacon Hill neighborhood.
The Liberty Hotel’s name is a wry nod to the building’s dark past as the notorious Charles Street Jail. The cold granite walls once housed the likes of infamous serial killers, notorious local gangsters, and even a pillar of the civil rights movement. While none of the sordid and storied characters that walked through the Charles Street Jail gates received room service, the experience of being an inmate likely provided a wake-up call for many, and its conditions were a source of deep controversy. Some, it is said, may even be permanent residents today. You can check in with the ghostly goings on at The Liberty Hotel in all its striking glory here.
IS THE LIBERTY HOTEL HAUNTED?
Liberty Hotel could not offer a more stark contrast from the days when the proud granite structure housed many wayward characters. The slow-burning candle of time was undoubtedly a closely watched and agonizing light for those incarcerated in its walls. The Charles Street Jail is believed to hold the souls of both inmates long gone and the hardened guards who watched over them. Tales of spectral sightings and eerie encounters are abundant, mirroring the countless criminals that had unwillingly called Charles Street home. Book a ghost tour with Boston Ghosts to learn more about Boston’s haunted history.
Infamous Inhabitants of Charles Street Jail
Considered an architectural jewel in Boston’s skyline crown, The Liberty Hotel is far from its previous life as Charles Street Jail, a correctional facility forever locked in infamy. A creative vision realized by celebrated architect Gridley James Fox Bryant, the jail was constructed in 1851. The thrusting facade of the Gothic Revivalist structure is considered one of the finest remaining examples of ‘Boston Granite Style’ buildings and speaks loudly of the strength of law and order over the common man in the mid-19th century.
Such strength indeed that the walls stood firm to hold the likes of feared and notorious gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger and the infamous serial killer Albert DeSalvo. DeSalvo sparked terror over the city of Boston in the early 1960s and seared the moniker ‘The Boston Strangler’ in Bostonian blood. It was the Charles Street Jail that held the vile killer in its grasp. That same clutch kept famed civil rights activist Malcolm X within one of the 220 8ft x 10ft cold granite cells.
Even WW2 would not be kept entirely out of the prison walls. The jail housed German POWs, with captured U-boat submariners locked away from the raging conflict.
From Imprisonment to Liberty
The jail was no mere projection of strength. Its very design was a meticulous and evenly conceived blend of the artistic grace its appearance retains today and the grim function for which it was initially birthed. Built as a cross from locally quarried Quincy granite, the jail’s out-stretched limbs were joined to an octagonal rotunda and towering atrium. The wings of this structure boasted 33 ft tall glass windows that served to both ventilate the building and allow the light to shine down upon those housed within its dark confines.
Each of these wings was conceived to segregate the prisoners based on their gender and the nature of their crimes. In 1973, after 120 years of housing some of Boston’s most undesirable offenders, massive overcrowding and deteriorating conditions within these thick walls would lead prisoners to revolt. Citing “cruel and unusual punishment,” the inmates forced change. However, it wouldn’t be until Memorial Day 1990 that the last prisoner exited the Charles Street Jail to be rehoused elsewhere.
Today, those same towering windows, cell doors, and iron crosswalks that guards vigilantly patrolled are woven into the fabric of a stunning luxury hotel offering nearly 300 rooms. An aptly named and award-winning hotel restaurant, ‘Clink,’ provides delectable sustenance for a far more willing clientele. In a testament to the Liberty Hotel's dedication to embodying the character of Bryant's architectural vision, the 2001 transformation from jail to hotel would even see the contemporary custodians of the building complete a missing piece of Bryant’s plan. A breathtaking cupola is now in place that had been cut from the original design through budget constraints, bringing even more light and air to the space within, just as Bryant had originally wished.
HOTEL HAUNTINGS
The Liberty Hotel’s prior life as a place of fear and suffering still lingers today, albeit far more elusive. Numerous souls lost their lives within the jail walls, and some perhaps still serve time today, forever enduring a sentence with no freedom in sight. Visitors to the Liberty Hotel have spoken of seeing apparitional shadowy faces who seem keen on keeping tabs on life within the hotel walls. A ghostly figure peering at you through a hotel window would elicit fear, no doubt, but phantasmal figures have been seen peering through the glass seven floors up, further preying on the mind and sending shivers down the spines of those who have caught a fleeting glimpse.
The former prison kitchen has become a focus of unearthly tales. Hotel visitors have heard disembodied voices calling orders while others recall the sound of heavy boots upon the ground, where not a soul can be found. Not of the living kind, at least. The sounds of sobbing and screaming have, on occasion, been carried on the air like echoes of torment through time, adding to the frightening aura that can pierce the luxurious veneer of the hotel’s grounds.
THE BEACON OF BEACON HILL
The iconic architectural vision of Gridley James Fox Bryant is one of contrasts. Bryant is celebrated for his work but died destitute, with the true worth of his life’s undertakings still unrevealed. The Charles Street Jail that breathed through this vision was a place of hardship, housing sociopathic killers and violent offenders alike. If Bryant was indeed the painter who conjured these brush strokes upon the Boston canvas, what stands today is undoubtedly the completed vision of what he foresaw. Melding function and form while retaining all the character of the original intent and purpose.
The life of this imposing and aggressive yet elegant building and those of the souls who have come, gone, and even remain are now enshrined in a living, breathing monument. The spooks and spirits that haunt the hotel inhabit a more wondrous place than their previous stays and could be forgiven no doubt for leering into today's building. Baseball icon Babe Ruth once toured the Charles Street Prison while visiting Boston and remarked that it “seemed more like a hotel than a jail.” Perhaps Gridley James Fox Bryant wasn’t the only person with a vision.
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