The closure of the downtown prison known as Supermax has been hinted at for years and it happened slowly, with a dribble of prisoners, including five on death row, quietly moved elsewhere over the past two years. Most went to a new high-tech prison in Western Maryland.

The official end came Tuesday when the facility was turned over to the feds to be used as badly-needed pre-trial detention center. Finally, those awaiting trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore can be held in one place, instead of scattered about the Northeast.

At left, a photo the cells in Supermax, taken by The Sun's Doug Kapustin, during a rare tour in 2008.

But nostalgia aside, Supermax had a frightening 21-year history -- two made-for-TV escapes and complaints of confinement more suitable for a gulag than an American prison. Inmates were held in lock down 23 hours a day in cells with tiny windows. There as the infamous "pink room" that had a hole in the floor for a toilet, no windows, in prisoners were shackled at the ankles and wrists and left in their underwear.

The feds called conditions inhumane. So did prisoner advocacy groups and eventually even state officials. A former state prison official said facilities like Supermax are needed, but the one in Baltimore should have been built away from the city and officials should have done more to help the inmates.

Read more about the history of Supermax and a news story on it's transformation to a federal detention center.