Downtown Salem on Halloween 2015
Salem in the month of October was really awesome to see and explore. Not only are there interesting costumes downtown, fun tours to go on, and lots of tent vendors downtown, there are also a large number of visiting people, many even from out of the country. I went downtown many times during October and every time I saw new things to amaze over. The one event that I went to and am writing about is the actual night of Halloween in downtown Salem as this was definitely a very interesting night.
Downtown Salem on Halloween night is just as crazy as people say it is. There are thousands of people with great costumes, the carnival was there glowing brightly while drawing lots of people into it, and I had a group of about 15 friends with me to explore and experience our first Salem Halloween together. Essex Street is where we spent most of our night. It was filled with lots of vendors, hundreds of people all dressed up in amazing costumes, music playing from a stage midway down the street, and preachers shouting that everyone will be going to hell. There was such a mix of people downtown all coming from different places and being different ages yet it was just like a big party. Everywhere you went there was music playing louder than all the chatter that the people caused. Salem on Halloween is different than anything I’ve ever seen or done before and was a fantastic experience. The amount of people downtown was somewhat annoying because lines were long everywhere, especially at the "porta-potty" bathrooms. Even as we walked back to campus we saw huge amounts of people dressed up and having a good time. It was much more than I could have ever expected even after being downtown on the weekends before and hearing stories from previous years from other people.
Some of the costumes that I saw were really creative and unique while some people didn’t even really dress up. One group of people I saw had dressed as different colors of “M&M’s.” Another creative costume was a box of cereal and a carton of milk that a couple wore. Since Halloween is one of my favorite holidays due to all the different costumes that you get to see and the costumes that you get to wear, being in Salem this year was pretty magnificent. I also found it pretty cool that you could go downtown any day during the month of October and you would see at least a handful of people in costumes.
Downtown Salem on Halloween night is just as crazy as people say it is. There are thousands of people with great costumes, the carnival was there glowing brightly while drawing lots of people into it, and I had a group of about 15 friends with me to explore and experience our first Salem Halloween together. Essex Street is where we spent most of our night. It was filled with lots of vendors, hundreds of people all dressed up in amazing costumes, music playing from a stage midway down the street, and preachers shouting that everyone will be going to hell. There was such a mix of people downtown all coming from different places and being different ages yet it was just like a big party. Everywhere you went there was music playing louder than all the chatter that the people caused. Salem on Halloween is different than anything I’ve ever seen or done before and was a fantastic experience. The amount of people downtown was somewhat annoying because lines were long everywhere, especially at the "porta-potty" bathrooms. Even as we walked back to campus we saw huge amounts of people dressed up and having a good time. It was much more than I could have ever expected even after being downtown on the weekends before and hearing stories from previous years from other people.
Some of the costumes that I saw were really creative and unique while some people didn’t even really dress up. One group of people I saw had dressed as different colors of “M&M’s.” Another creative costume was a box of cereal and a carton of milk that a couple wore. Since Halloween is one of my favorite holidays due to all the different costumes that you get to see and the costumes that you get to wear, being in Salem this year was pretty magnificent. I also found it pretty cool that you could go downtown any day during the month of October and you would see at least a handful of people in costumes.
The History of the Old Salem Jail
The first jail of Salem became operational in 1638. It was made completely out of wood and was used to house some of the accused witches during the 1690's. In 1810, the wooden jail was proving to not be as functional as it should have been so the town of Salem planned to design and build a new jail. This jail was made out of stone and was located at the corner of St. Peter Street and Bridge Street. The construction took two years, starting in 1811 and ending in 1813. The new jail was only large enough to house 112 inmates. In 1884 they started an addition that took one year and increased the inmate capacity while also upgrading the Jail keeper's house. This expansion in 1884 and 1885 would be the last upgrade done to the jail until its closing in 1991. |
In 1984, Salem inmates sued the jail for unsafe living conditions and won, getting $1.3 million. The Salem jail had no air conditioning, causing it to be an oven in the summer while the bad heating system caused it to be an ice box in the winter. The jail also had no running toilets in the cells which made the inmates use a bucket to contain their feces and were forced to carry it to one of the few working toilets in the jail. Some of the more foul inmates would occasionally use their feces to throw at guards. The bad living conditions and lack of upgrades to the air conditioning, heating, and plumbing systems caused the Old Salem Jail to close in 1991, sending the inmates to the "state-of-the-art, $53 million Middleton Jail." |
Above on the right is the condos and on the left is The Great Escape Restaurant.
Above is the inside of A&B Burgers in the older part of the Salem Jail.
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The Old Salem Jail sat empty from 1991 until 2009, when they began to build brand-new condos in the 1884 addition of the jail, even reusing some materials and using some aspects from the old jail. Along with these condos, a restaurant called "The Great Escape Restaurant" was also built, but in the older part of the jail. This restaurant stayed there until closing in 2013, then another restaurant, "A&B Burgers," moved in. (I actually went to A&B Burgers when I was visiting Salem for an Open House and loved both the food and the atmosphere.) Unfortunately at this current point, there isn't a restaurant there as the common issue has been a lack of parking for these restaurants. The Old Salem Jail more currently.
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Works Cited:
Berger, Chris. "Old Salem Jail Turned Into Bewitching Luxury Apartments." Curbed. Curbed, 19 July 2012. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
"Historic Salem Jail – 50 St. Peter Street." Historic Salem. Historic Salem Inc., 31 July 2011. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
"History." Mass.gov. Essex County Sheriff's Department, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.
Luca, Dustin. "Jailbreak for A&B Burgers Raises Question of What's next for Old Salem Jail." The Salem News. The Salem News, 27 Aug. 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Berger, Chris. "Old Salem Jail Turned Into Bewitching Luxury Apartments." Curbed. Curbed, 19 July 2012. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
"Historic Salem Jail – 50 St. Peter Street." Historic Salem. Historic Salem Inc., 31 July 2011. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
"History." Mass.gov. Essex County Sheriff's Department, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.
Luca, Dustin. "Jailbreak for A&B Burgers Raises Question of What's next for Old Salem Jail." The Salem News. The Salem News, 27 Aug. 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.