Metropolitan Detention Center
80 29th Street | also 100 29th Street, 109 30th Street, 830 3rd Avenue | Sunset Park | built 1931
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1993
Federal Building No. 1, a Bush Terminal loft, is blown down to clear the jail's site
The land beneath the future jail was once part of Bush Terminal, the shipping and warehouse complex now called Industry City. Federal Building No. 1, one of the original loft buildings and a former Coast Guard home, came down in a controlled explosion in August 1993 to make room. Federal officials had first proposed a jail in two Industry City buildings in 1988, over neighbors' fears of traffic and strained water and sewer systems.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1994
The Metropolitan Detention Center opens to hold people awaiting trial in federal court
MDC Brooklyn opened in January 1994 with room for 1,000 people held before arraignment or trial in the Eastern District of New York's federal court. It is run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
“MDC Brooklyn opened in January 1994. It was built to hold 1,000 inmates awaiting arraignment or trial at the federal court in the Eastern District of New York.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
A second facility opens next door and makes the jail the nation's largest detention center
In November 1999 a second facility opened beside the original complex for inmates who had been sentenced and were waiting to be moved to a permanent prison. With nearly 3,000 inmates in all, MDC Brooklyn became the biggest detention center in the country.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2013
After an inmate's relationship with a guard, a judge calls for an inquiry into the jail's management
In February 2013 news outlets reported that former correction officer Nancy Gonzalez was carrying a child fathered by Ronell Wilson, an inmate awaiting resentencing for the 2003 murders of two NYPD detectives. Gonzalez pleaded guilty in July 2013. At Wilson's resentencing on September 10, Judge Nicholas Garaufis called for a Justice Department inspector general investigation of the jail's management, saying Wilson had been permitted to treat it as his own private fiefdom.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2019
More than 1,600 inmates go a week with little heat or power during a cold wave
A power outage that began on the weekend of January 26-27, 2019 left more than 1,600 inmates with little or no heat and power for roughly a week in a cold wave. A faulty electrical panel was fixed but then caught fire the day after, and power came back on the evening of February 3. Inmates who protested through hunger strikes and disobedience reported reprisals, including pepper spray and solitary confinement.
“In January and February 2019, over 1,600 inmates were kept with little to no heat and power for a week during the January 2019 North American cold wave.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2024
Sean 'Diddy' Combs is held in the jail's Special Housing Unit
In September 2024, the same month the Bureau of Prisons confirmed it would stop sending newly sentenced defendants to the Metropolitan Detention Center, rapper and producer Sean 'Diddy' Combs was incarcerated in its Special Housing Unit. The decision is possibly tied to an earlier ruling in which a federal judge threatened to set aside a man's sentence if he were sent there.
“In September 2024, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that federal defendants entering the prison system after sentencing will no longer be sent to MDC Brooklyn.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
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