On September 26, 1980, Lake Placid Olympic Village reopens as a federal correctional facility, fulfilling a Congressional requirement that the site be repurposed following the games. Built with athlete security in mind after the 1972 Olympic terrorist attacks, the complex’s design made it uniquely suited for conversion into a prison.
When the U.S. bid for the 1980 Winter Olympics, it struck a deal with the International Olympic Committee: The village could be built near Lake Placid in upstate New York with public funds only if the dormitories were designed for later use as inmate housing. The five cinderblock dorms held 1,000 small, spartan “sleeping rooms,” each with barred windows. Heavy steel doors had “peep” windows for guards to later check in on inmates. Two 11-foot electric perimeter fences surrounded the site—first to keep terrorists out, later to keep convicts in.
Many athletes bristled at staying in what looked and felt like a future jail. “After four years of hard training, we cannot expect competitors to live in such a lousy place,” Gianfranco Cameli, a member of the Italian Olympic Committee, complained: “The rooms clearly show what they are meant for… If two stay inside with the door closed for privacy, they’d feel as if they were in prison—suffocating.” Protesters picketed the Olympic torch relay, and an opposition group circulated posters showing the torch being held by a hand emerging from prison bars.
Beyond the dorms, six additional buildings rounded out the complex, all of which were adapted for the new purpose. The athletes’ recreation center, for example—once home to a game room, discotheque and 350-seat theater—now houses a prison chapel, chaplain’s office, psychology department and commissary, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
The 1980 Games marked Lake Placid’s second time hosting the Winter Olympics. (The first was in 1932.) Team USA notched some big wins: Its hockey team delivered a dramatic gold medal upset over Cold War rival USSR, and speedskater Eric Heiden became the first athlete to win five individual gold medals at a single Olympics. And for the first time in Olympic history, ski events used artificial snow.
By 2025, more than 800 men lived behind bars at the former Olympic Village, now known as Federal Correctional Institution Ray Brook.
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