No early checkout: The Flowood Community Work Center
Boston has a fancy new hotel in an unusual building — the city's old Charles Street Jail.
Back home, we've got a jail in an unusual building — an old hotel. The Airways Motel was the first real business in Flowood, Miss., the next town over from the one I grew up in. My grandmother used to take me there for a swim and a supper of Mexican food.
Today, it's surrounded by razor wire and people lining up in suits with black and white stripes. My old haunt has become the Flowood Community Work Center, with room for 130 nonviolent female offenders. "It's a prison, ma'am," explains the woman who answers the phone. "It is a prison."
Used to do back dives into the swimming pool where that grass now grows.
Special thanks to NPR's Beth Novey, who sorted out the facts, and to Cathy Garrett, my aunt who drove out there and took the pictures. You can find Aunt Cathy online here.
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