One of the best guided tours Gilda and I ever took was back in 1978, at Alcatraz, the island prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay. It’s most appropriate to recall this tour today as tonight marks the 50th anniversary of the only escape from the prison-on-the-rock that might have succeeded (for details, read: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/us/anniversary-of-a-mystery-at-alcatraz.html?_r=1).
We journeyed to Alcatraz as part of our first trip to California. After visiting my sister in Los Angeles, and taking a trip down to San Diego, we drove north along the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, stopping along the way in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Simeon (the Hearst Castle), Carmel and Monterey. We had heard about the Alcatraz tour and arranged tickets for the 15-minute boat ride to the island.
Today, visitors are given headsets to listen to audio descriptions of Alcatraz as they walk at their leisure around the former federal penitentiary. Back in 1978, Park Service Rangers provided live commentary as they guided tour groups throughout the facility.
Though it was the middle of summer during our visit, Alcatraz was chilly, with a dampness that invaded our bones. Weather conditions, we found out, were part of the unique punishment meted out to incorrigible prisoners who earned a stay in solitary confinement, what the inmates called “the hole.” There were six solitary confinement cells, as distinct from 36 segregation cells where prisoners were confined throughout the day. Their only relief from the segregation cells was one visit per week to the recreation yard which they “enjoyed” individually.
To make them as uncomfortable as possible, prisoners were stripped naked before being placed in the dark, lightless hole, the Park Ranger told us. The walls and floor of the cell were stone because stone would not become warmer from contact with the body. Rather, the wind blowing in from the bay would keep it cold, so prisoners would try their best to maintain a position that exposed the least amount of skin to the surface. They did that by squatting down on their haunches and balancing themselves with a few fingertips for hours on end, he said. He invited us to step inside a cell and assume the position. It was not a comfortable experience.
“Guests” of the hole received one meal a day. As the government had to provide a minimum number of calories to each prisoner per day, the guards concocted what became known as an “Alcatraz cocktail.” All the food from each day was blended together to form what I’m sure was not a savory drink.
As we walked through the shower room where inmates were showered three times a week, to our surprise the Park Ranger said the showers used hot, not cold, water. His explanation made perfect sense. Prison officials had no desire to acclimate their charges to the frigid bay waters. If they were going to try to escape by jumping into the bay, they wanted them to be shocked by the cold water.
One final tidbit of information—The “Birdman of Alcatraz,” Robert Stroud, made famous by a biography and a movie of the same name starring Burt Lancaster, actually was the Birdman of Leavenworth. Leavenworth didn’t have the same panache as Alcatraz so the location name was changed even though Stroud never kept birds in Alcatraz after being transferred to the island from Leavenworth, Kans., in 1942.
If you’re ever in San Francisco, visit Alcatraz. I’m sure the trip will be fascinating, even if it’s electronically described.