Friday and
Saturday, March 12-13, 2010
Alcatraz; San Francisco to Knoxville
Downstairs to see the vendors at 8:00, before my
seminar begins at 9:00. Stenograph, my court reporting
hardware and software vendor of choice, unveiled at
this conference a limited-edition Diamante steno
machine in “Pink Ribbon” color for breast-cancer
awareness. <Eyes rolling> I might as well have
slept in!
The business part of my trip ended just before noon. We
checked out of the Hyatt Regency at 1:00 p.m. and left
our bags with the bellman.
We had three hours before our visit to Alcatraz, our
last stop on the San Francisco tourist trail. Until
this point in our vacation, we’d been really lucky with
the weather, but today it was raining. The only sight
we missed due to the rain was the view from Coit Tower.
Too bad, but by now we’d seen lots of great views in
San Fran!
Coit Tower atop
Telegraph Hill
With time for a long lunch, we went to Front
Street for the third time, and today we ate at an Irish
pub called The Royal Exchange. The burger and
cheesesteak were good, but at six bucks apiece for the
beers (and who drinks just one beer?), we spent kind of
a lot of money for lunch.
We had tickets on the last ferry of the day heading to
Alcatraz, on what’s called the “night tour,” leaving
from Pier 33 at 4:20. We’d be on Alcatraz for sunset,
to see the long shadows fall across the prison cells
and to see San Francisco light up at night.
Welcome to
Alcatraz
Alcatraz Island is located in the San Francisco
Bay, a mile and a quarter offshore from San Francisco.
It was a cold and rainy ferry ride, but the rain
stopped as we arrived at the island. The dreary sky
suited the gloomy atmosphere of the notorious prison
island.
Our overcast
approach
In the 1800s Alcatraz served as a defensive fort
and a military prison, first housing Confederate
sympathizers during the Civil War, and later general
long-term military prisoners. It was deactivated as a
military prison in 1933 and transferred to the civilian
Bureau of Prisons.
Guard
tower
Operated by the Bureau of Prisons from 1934 to
1963, “The Rock” served as a maximum-security
penitentiary for such notorious prisoners as Al Capone,
Robert “the Birdman” Stroud, and George “Machine Gun”
Kelly. Most of the inmates were either escape risks or
were considered disruptive or “incorrigible.“
The prison was smaller than I thought it would be, but
just as menacing, holding an average inmate population
of 260 prisoners at any given time, in cells 5-feet
wide, 9-feet long, and 7-feet high.
Cellhouse
5'w x 9'l x
7'h
It cost three times more to house each prisoner
on Alcatraz than in other maximum-security facilities.
Sixty Bureau of Prisons families lived on the island as
well, the children catching a ferry each day to the
mainland to attend school. Alcatraz was closed as a
prison in 1963 due to the high cost of providing food
and supplies to the inmates, correctional officers, and
the officers’ families.
Alcatraz Island
Lighthouse
In 1969 thousands of American Indians began a
19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island, a highlight of
the American Indian rights movement. Representing
dozens of North American Indian nations, they called
themselves “Indians of All Tribes.” The occupation
eventually ended, but not before the public was
awakened to the plight of the American Indians,
resulting in the end of the official U.S. government
policy of termination of Indian tribes. Graffiti from
the time of the Indian Occupation remains on the prison
walls to this day.
Graffiti from the
Indian Occupation
In 1972 Alcatraz was designated as part of the
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, managed by the
National Park Service. It opened to visitors in 1973. A
45-minute audio tour guides guests through the
facility. The night tour also includes presentations by
the rangers only offered at night.
The sun sets behind
the Golden Gate Bridge
The last ferry left Alcatraz at 7:15. A short
time later we were back in San Francisco in the cold,
damp night, with a few hours to kill before heading to
the airport. Chilled to the bone, we returned to The
Buena Vista for some Irish coffee. Tom and I sat at the
bar and watched the bartender’s technique, and now we
can make a mean Irish coffee too, though we’ve taken
the liberty of substituting Kentucky bourbon for Irish
whisky!
The lights of San
Francisco from Alcatraz
In high spirits, we rode the Powell-Hyde and
California cable cars back to the Embarcadaro and
shared a sandwich at Subway. Then we picked up our
luggage at the Hyatt and caught a BART train to the
airport. Our plane left SFO at 1:30 a.m. Saturday,
March 13. We changed planes in the wee hours of the
morning in Memphis and arrived at TYS (Knoxville!) at
10:50 a.m.
Parting shot:
Partington Cove, Big Sur
THE END
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