3. Spofford Juvenile Detention Center
The Spofford Juvenile Detention Center in Hunts Point, The Bronx closed in 2011 after community activists and criminal justice advocates cited its poor living conditions and treatment. Renamed the Bridges Juvenile Detention Center in 1999, the multi-wing complex once held as many as 289 juvenile detainees. The detention center featured several recreational facilities such as basketball and tennis courts and a pool. It also held a state-approved school named the Carter G. Woodson Academy.
When Spofford closed in 2011, the center left everything behind, giving the building the appearance a frozen-in-time appearance. Mattresses, files, deflated basketballs, and a single black sneaker are among the pieces remaining in the abandoned detention center. The building will not stay like this for long, however, as the New York City Economic Development Corporation has plans to turn the formal detention center into a five-acre affordable housing development called “The Peninsula.” In June 2022, Mayor Eric Adams, a former detainee of the center, co-launched the official transformation of the site.