A phrase, “break the rules and you will go to prison, break the rules of the prison and go to Alcatraz,” he welcomes a large black and white photograph to the hundreds of tourists who visit the world’s most famous jail every day. They call her the rock, because she stands in a nine -hectare islet, just over two kilometers from the San Francisco city. The deterrent message has acquired a new meaning since last Sunday the US president Donald Trump echoed in his social network of that legendary hard hand of Alcatraz with the announcement that he had given order to “rebuild and reopen” the penitentiary center “substantially expanded, to house the most ruthless and violent criminals in the United States”. The next day he repeated the occurrence and linked immigration and crime again.
They are just over 10.00 and, as almost every day, the fog covers the Golden Gate bridge and part of the San Francisco Bay. A ship from the Alcatraz City Cruises company sails full of dock tourists with the direction of the old penitentiary. The experience costs $ 48 (42 euros) and lasts about three hours. Almost a million and a half people arrived from around the world go through it every year.
The ship reaches the islet about 15 minutes later and corners in front of the Apartament Block in which the prison workers and their families lived. On the facade, a great graffiti remembers that this inhospitable place was an Indianland day (Earth of Indians). The island of Alcatraz served first from the barracks (1853-1907), after military prison (between 1907-1930) and, finally, of Civil Penitentiary (1934-1963). They closed it because it cost too much to keep it.
In addition to a memory of other times, it is also a symbol of the struggle for the rights of American natives. They occupied the island three times. The last one, in 1969, when they controlled it for 19 months. A small guide, for sale for a dollar, remembers that those squatters tried to buy the island to the government for 24 dollars and other products. A look at the group of tourists who just land confirms that the federal government preferred to give it another destination, that of the phenomenal memory business. A destination that Trump now seeks to change.
The itinerary simulates the entry of a prisoner in jail. For a few hours the visitor feels that he is an inmate ready to rot between those walls. It enters through the showroom, but the tourist receives an audioguía instead of a soap pill.
Terry Woolsey, a 79 -year -old retired engineer, arrived from Kansas, protects himself from the sun with a blue cap that betrays him as Vietnam veteran. “Trump is a poker player,” he says. “He throws his letters to see who plays and if, incidentally, he commits himself along the way. For my profession I know that it would be impossible mission to put this prison again. In addition, it would come out very expensive. Food and water can only come from one place: Tierra Firme.” The guy is defined as conservative and considers, as Trump, that there are too many dangerous criminals in the streets of the United States and that it is necessary to expand the number of prisons. He also says that his wife, Anne, 79, is “socialist.” She intervenes to affirm that she does not agree with government policies, “especially when they accuse criminal refugees.”
The engineer Woolsey is right: to put Alcatraz’s prison again at the service of criminal justice, almost complete reconstruction would be necessary. Some buildings are in ruins, without ceilings and with stabbed walls to avoid their collapse. Many areas are closed for security; Part of their walls have come down. In the ramp that gives access to the morgue and the water tank, a red ribbon warns of a recent detachment. In the main pavilion, many doors of the doors do not work and the oxide covers the pipes of what was one day the heating system. Its narrow cells, 2.7 by 1.5 meters, look in an unfortunate state. Many sinks and toilets are shattered, the drains, sealed, and the walls, chipped.
In another demonstration of his conflictive relationship with the truth, Trump said last Monday that no one managed to escape from prison. The truth is that in the 29 years he was in operation, there were 11 attempts to escape, and at least five of them were successful. The best known feat is the one starring Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers. They managed to escape in 1962 with a thorough plan for which they designed heads with paper and real hair to deceive the guards, and that they thought they slept. In addition, they used spoons to dig on the wall. The feat served as raw material to Alcatraz leak (1972), a classic prison with Clint Eastwood.
The island has been the scene of many other films, which has contributed to its enormous popularity. The governor of California and Democratic leader Gavin Newsom took advantage of the cinema last Tuesday in Sacramento to respond to Trump. He talked about The rock (1996), starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. “Perhaps the president was seeing her and from there the inspiration came. In real life this proposal makes no sense,” said Newsom, who added with a certain poetic that “the Trump plan has the same substance as the fog that enters through the bay and survives Alcatraz every day.” The mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie, agrees that “it is not a serious proposal.”
From one of the corners of the cell pavilion he goes to the patio, the only place where prisoners could enjoy the outdoors. The soil is upholstered by bird droppings and the grass sprouts between the concrete cracks. This island also has a high ecological value because it is an important bird reserve. On the other side, after an oxidized door, thousands of cormorants observe the tourists in their nests. Above the prison fly Western seagulls, and the national parks’ service, responsible for the management of Alcatraz, has detected on the island other species such as the night garza and the Colombian Arao.
In the background, the silhouette of the city of San Francisco is guessed. “I think it is more a demonstration of strength than a realizable idea,” says Pauline Catazzo, a 30 -year -old French, after taking a photograph with the Golden Gate in the background. “It is a paradox that wants to raise money with tariffs to lower taxes and do this kind of thing.”
On the fence that separates the kitchen there is a panel where the last food service is still written, breakfast of March 21, 1963. Cereals, scrambled eggs, milk, coffee and toasted. Along with this poster, Professor Miguel Astorga, 32 -year -old Californian, does not take away an eye of the students that he has taken this May morning of an excursion. “San Francisco is a city with a very interesting past and this prison is part of it. I teach history, my students are not so interested. Here they can touch an important part of their country’s recent past,” he explains. On Trump’s plans, he adds: “I think he wants to hit this California area because he is mostly a Democrat, and uses this announcement, once again, to scare, as he did with immigrants deportations to El Salvador.”
After touring the meetings, see the photos of the best known prisoners, from Al Capone to Robert Stoud, aka Birdman (Bird man), the offices and the lighthouse, the visit to Alcatraz ends where it started: at the dock. The passengers take the same ship in which they arrived, the Alcatraz Clipper. The small crew, as well as the employees of national parks that manage this islet, will be the first affected by Trump’s plans if it manages to carry them out.
Alcatraz is a good business: it raises $ 60 million annually between ferry tickets, excursions and sales in the memories store. Both the concessionary company, which has the transportation monopoly of travelers to the island, and the National Parks Service, maintain their silence on the proposal to reconvers the jail. Nor were they answered this week to the questions of this newspaper.
When the last of the tourists has approached the Alcatraz Clipperthe ship sails. Nobody wants to be left behind. Visitors, inmates for a few hours, leave with the feeling of having escaped from the most famous maximum security prison in the world. Maybe your experience has the days counted. If Trump’s plans prosper, who arrive in Alcatraz will do it for a much longer visit.
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