Prisons To Condos: The Transformation Of Toronto’s Liberty Village (VIDEO)

While many Torontonians may have come to know Liberty Village as a youthful neighbourhood bursting with condos, its past looked wildly different.

In this edition of Narcity's Then&Now series, we look back at the transformation of this historical Toronto area, including a dark part of its history.

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This region was actually the former home of not just one, but two prisons, the Toronto Central Prison, located by Strachan and East Liberty Street, and the Andrew Mercer Reformatory for women, at the site currently occupied by Alan Lamport Stadium.

The Toronto Central Prison, when commanded by Warden William Stratton Prince, took on a rather disturbing reputation that Toronto Historian Morgan Cameron Ross describes as "draconian, Dickensian, and, pretty much awful."

While Liberty Village has since changed significantly, traces reminiscent of its past can still be found in the form of the vacant Prison Chapel on East Liberty Street.