The ongoing demolition of the old jail on York Street, which for nearly a century housed Hampden County's prisoners, has unearthed few mysteries or startling artifacts.

Instead, the deconstruction has been fairly predictable, with asbestos the main obstacle to its scheduled completion next month, said David B. Panagore, Springfield's chief development officer.

"I've done a lot of restoration and demolition, and this is not out of the ordinary. These are heavy buildings, so you are just tearing down more material," he said.

Built in the 1880s, the Hampden County Jail and House of Correction on York Street was closed in 1992 when a new county lockup opened in Ludlow. The demolition, which began in earnest in late November, involves taking down 16 buildings on a 3.5-acre site between West Columbus Avenue and the Connecticut River.

North American Site Development Corp., of Waltham, is doing the work under a $1.24 million contract with the city. The demolition was ordered only after the city was unsuccessful in its effort to find a buyer for the historic building, which is just south of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

"The first thing we did was speak to the historical preservation folks and the local nonprofit store, ReStore. We identified elements in the building that could be reused, such as faucets and sinks. For instance, the wrought iron fence around the property will be reused by the parks department," Panagore said.
The major difficulty of the work has been the condition of the buildings' asbestos, he said.

"The roof structure had asbestos paper on it that had broken up over the years. It's crumbled and if that gets airborne, that's a real hazard. So we had to encapsulate the entire roof structure and remove it from the inside by hand. Anytime you do work by hand, it costs money," Panagore said.

One might expect that when pulled apart, a jail that housed criminals for more than a century would reveal historical oddities, even hidden treasures. No such luck, he said.

"There have been no surprising finds in the building, no small pot of buried gold under the floors or a map to something. Sometimes you discover interesting artifacts between two layers of a brick wall, maybe a coffee cup a worker who was building the jail put there or maybe a cigar," Panagore said.

Marc J. Richards, the project manager for Tighe & Bond, which did the engineering studies for the project, said one interesting "urban legend" concerning the prison involves a silver dollar that was supposedly embedded in the floor directly beneath the hangman's trap door, which was positioned 40 feet up in the ceiling of the jail's main rotunda.

"The York Street jail was the last place in Massachusetts where they did public hangings. The story is that during the last public hanging, a coin either fell out of the prisoner's hand or he flung it as he dropped and the coin landed and embedded in the floor where it stayed until recently," he said.

While the coin, if it ever did exist, has disappeared, "The trap door is still visible and will be salvaged by the city during demolition," Richards said. It will likely be donated to the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum of the Springfield Museums.

The jail was the scene of the last legal hanging in Massachusetts on Dec. 30, 1898, when Dominique Krathofski, convicted of a "crime of lust and jealousy" against his 17-year-old stepdaughter, was put to death.

Krathofski had shot the girl and then himself. The girl died, but he recovered and stood trial. His hanging occurred after the state Legislature had passed a law outlawing hanging and substituting the electric chair, but before the new legislation took effect.

The jail, along with the Hampden County Hall of Justice, was the scene of some filming for the 1995 movie, "Before and After," with Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep. It was used for a scene in which parents Neeson and Streep visit their incarcerated son as he awaits trial for murder.