Stabu Street received its name from a pillory, which for many years stood near the outskirts of the city on Riga’s main street (now known as Brīvības Street). Criminals were chained here to the pillory or burnt alive. The pillory was removed only in 1849. Still the aura of this place, which had accumulated over the centuries, has not disappeared.

During the Soviet occupation the Committee of State Security (the KGB) was housed in a building on the corner of Brīvības and Stabu Street. Here the prisoners were tortured and killed. Sometimes a person was invited here for a “friendly chat” and asked to “cooperate" in the way KGB saw fit. The locals named this house the  “corner house”, and even today this simple expression arouses dreadful feelings.  On 14 June, 2003 a memorial stone to all the Latvian inhabitants who were tortured during the Soviet occupation was unveiled here.