Decarceral Geographies: Black Art, Spatial Reuse, and the Afterlife of a Police Precinct

ABSTRACT This article examines the transformation of 740 University Avenue in Rochester, NY from a police precinct designed by Claude Bragdon to a community arts space and, today, a literary center. Tracing its use by the Navy, Police Athletic League, a recreation center, the Allofus Art Workshop, and Writers & Books, I explore how adaptive reuse can unsettle carceral legacies without explicit abolitionist intent. Drawing on carceral geographies and Black Geographies, I develop the analytic of decarceral geographies to examine how Black placemaking and community art can temporarily loosen carceral logics within the constraints of racial capitalism and state power. Centering Luvon Sheppard and Allofus, the article shows how Black‐led, community‐rooted uses of space generated meaningful decarceral shifts within a former precinct. The case contributes to debates on carceral geographies and decarceral practice as well as to broader conversations on community vision and the futures of formerly carceral spaces.