This 1870 façade favored an impersonal, stockade type of architecture designed to isolate inmates. The original building was designed to hold 39 prisoners in three tiers of cells and bathing rooms; another section was set aside for eating and for the administrators. Despite plans to expand, no additional work took place for nearly two decades, causing the number of inmates held in each cell to double. Eventually condemned in the 1930s, the building was converted into a chapel but burned during the 1973 riots.

Peter Wollheim received his Ph.D. in communication from McGill University in 1991.