By Maureen Ferguson

From the ages of 10 to 18, I walked the same path to school every day. That journey brought me past 485 Best Street, which housed a building that perplexed me all those years. What would cause there to be a 12-foot concrete wall topped with barbed wire guarding a swing set and a seemingly innocuous structure? Upon diving into research on the history of the location, I discovered that it had first been a Magdalene Laundry—a Catholic center for “problematic” women and unwed mothers—which was the site of illegal adoptions and frequent abuse. Subsequently, the building became a juvenile detention center.

        I was deeply affected by the thought of how so many people’s youths had been taken from them and confined to the borders of that barbed wire fence, less than a mile from where I was spending my own childhood. This piece is an attempt to express my reaction to the troubled history of the site.

Maureen Ferguson (she/her) ‘25 is an architecture major. She loves creating art whenever she can and expressing her creativity through her architecture projects. Maureen enjoys thrifting, listening to music, and spending time with her friends, family, and dog.