We had booked our Alcatraz tickets before we went on our road trip, the sailings to the island start at 9.00am and every half an hour There after. Each sailing is filled to capacity with 350 people, every day of the year except Xmas and New Years Day….you do the math thats a hell of alot of people a year! The tickets themselves were $28 a piece…..Rosie was abit suspicious, it didnt seem enough! This bought you a return ferry ride to the island, a welcome on arrival, a 17 min introductory National Geographic history lesson video on the island and a 45 min audio tour of the cellblock…..it wasnt enough to pay! This would be one of the best value tours, for such a high profile site, we have ever been on.
Rosie and the Operator caught a tram to Pier 33 and arrived nice and early to collect my pre booked tickets, for the amount of people at the pick up zones everything ran nice and smooth….never late, Rosie and The Operator even had time for a cup of coffee before we started to que for the ferry at 9.40. We have been charmed with the weather, another cool, blue sky, fogless day on the harbour. The ride to the rock was about 12 mins and, once we were off loaded we were welcomed by a park ranger, Alcatraz is now a State National Park, he gave us a run down on how to get the most out of the island and what to do, and where to go next. We headed straight to the cold damp bunker like structure of the barracks basement for an audio visual presentation on the history of the island. Alcatraz was so much more than a prison, it started as a fortress in 1853 to secure the harbour during the gold rush, he who controlled the harbour controlled San Francisco at that time. In 1854 the first lighthouse on the Pacific Coast was built on the island. In 1861 the first civilian prisoners arrive, the island at that time was run by the war department. In 1934 the war department hands over the running of the prison to the justice department and Alcatraz reopens as a federal penitentiary. In 1963 Robert F Kennedy closes Alcatraz. In 1973 Alcatraz becomes part of the National Park Service and the first paying visitors arrive on the island.
This is the shower block, a concrete trough in the middle of a huge hall, from there you would retire to your prison cell, dimensions were 5 foot wide, 7 foot long and 9 feet high…each inmate had their own cell and the maximum amount of inmates ever held in Alcatraz was 302.
The prison was cool, skylights let in natural light from the ceiling but it was always dim, there was only a row of about 6 cells in one corner of the prison that got sun in them and they were considered the Ritz.
Alcatraz Prison Rules and Regulations 1934
Number 5
You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else you get is a privilege.
The prisoners were locked down for 23 hours per day, if you were in solitary you got one hour a week for shower and exercise. It didnt matter what the weather, rain hail or snow the men were out in the yard getting there dose of sky and air for their hour. From the steps leading down to the exercise yard the city looked so close….it was only one and a half miles away….so close, yet so far. On still days the sounds of the city would carry over to the prison.
The prisoners were allowed visitors, most never got any, there were four windows where the prisoners sat on one side and the visitor on the other….
The tour of the prison was a self guided audio tour that wove you around the corridors and covered all the points of interest. The narrators were either wardens or prisoners….thoughts, stories and feelings of incarceration were relayed through the eyes of the actual men that were housed and worked here. This is the best tour I have ever been on, the stories ran deeper than the facts of the building and the prison, it was enthralling. Walking around (even with a couple of hundred others surrounding you) you were drawn into the
personal struggles, emotions and feelings.
You can understand why so many men tried to break out…there was nothing else to do other than plot your freedom, the thoughts and hopes of making it where what would have kept you sane…..for us good law abiding citizens we hopped on a boat and motored home.
