“145 Ashland Place, between De Kalb Ave., and Willoughby Street, showing the City Prison, as seen from Lafayette Street. July 10, 1932.”

The Raymond Street Jail, later the Brooklyn City Prison, was built in 1836 to hold the city’s male prisoners (an annex for female prisoners was added in 1839). In an oversight emblematic of the building’s purpose, the prison was constructed without a front door (an entranceway was later carved out of the completed facade). The facility was closed in 1963 and razed ahead of the construction of the Brooklyn Hospital Center.