Alcatraz Island

One thing I felt I simply had to see before I left San Francisco was Alcatraz Island. (I don't know why, exactly, except that it is so famous and I was curious). My friends Hannah and Dhivya went with me.

Here is a picture of San Francisco from the boat we took to the Island:

The seagulls flew alongside the boat and picked food out of the children's hands who were feeding them.

The wind was blowing (as usual).

The Alcatraz cell-house.

                                             A stairway going up the hillside of the island.

We took an audio tour of the cell-house. This was the first thing we walked into - the showers.

A typical cell:

                                          Through the bars:

                                       A game many of the inmates liked to play - a one-man bridge game.

                                      
                                         The view from inside a cell.

                             
                                         This was the library.

         

 This is a view from inside "the hole", where they would lock prisoners who caused trouble in solitary confinement. One of the tour guides closed the door on me while I was inside so I could experience what it was like, and it was pitch-black.  On my audio tour, I heard an ex-inmate of Alcatraz say that when he got locked in there, he would tear a button off of his jacket, and throw it on the floor of the cell.  Then he would make a game of trying to find it.   As soon as he found it he would throw it down again, and try to find it again - to keep his mind busy and from going crazy.   Another inmate said he would focus really hard on the darkness, until he could see a point of light, and then the light would grow, and it was as if he could see a TV screen, and he would travel different places in the darkness with his mind's eye this way.

                                    
           
    If the prisoners behaved well they could have some hobby items in their cell. This one had a checker board.

                                  
                   Four prisoners were able to escape alcatraz by making fake heads out of wax and scratching away at the air vent in their cells with metal spoons. They were never found, but they think they probably drowned trying to swim to San Francisco (because the water is so cold and the swim is quite long and wavy).

                             The Alcatraz cafateria menu board.  They say the prisoners were fed well.

Flowers growing on the hillside of Alcatraz.  Many women and children lived on Alcatraz island (whose husbands/fathers worked at the prison). The children took a boat to school in San Francisco every day. They say they really liked living on the island.

                                           Dhivya snapping photos.

                                  
                                        Hannah and Dhivya.



A view of San Francisco from the island - we're about to catch the boat back.