Kings County Penitentiary, ca. 1905.

Built in the mid 1840s the Kings County Penitentiary was constructed on a large plot of land in what was then an extremely rural part of Brooklyn. The prison and adjacent workhouse was surrounded by a large stone wall (seen at front here). A facility for both men and women, the prisoners worked in a shoe factory on site or in chain gangs on the nearby streets (men only).

Like so many of the 19th century detention centers, this one too was awash mismanagement, violence, cruelty towards inmates, and deplorable conditions. The penitentiary was torn down in 1907 after the land was sold to the Jesuits. On the plot they planned a large educational facility that would house a grammar school, high school, and college.

The resulting campus was called the Brooklyn College and Preparatory School, though the college only lasted until 1913. Later called Brooklyn Preparatory School, the surrounding area (once the large plot belonging to the prison) was built out with educational facilities and athletic fields.

In 1971 the school was sold to the city for a new CUNY location. Today the Brooklyn Prep buildings are part of a much large campus of the Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York.