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Friday Slide Show: Inside Alcatraz
2 May 2025
We've never understood the fascination visitors to San Francisco display for Alcatraz. The prison, not the island. Everybody who visits us always wants to go there. We used to go along with them, out of politeness, but we now plead poverty and stay onshore.
So these are old shots. So old they were captured in 1999 with a Nikon 900, the first swivel camera the company developed. Its 1.2-MB sensor also shows its age, a creature that roamed the planet (and we with it) before the Smartphone Age. But we're not sure if we didn't tell, anyone would notice.
We did give them the benefit of a pass through modern Lightroom, adjusting the converging verticals and the white balance (it had trouble indoors with last century lighting competing with sunlight).
The last visitors we took to the dock paid $20 a head for the trip over (and back), getting their mug shot taken as they boarded (in case they wanted to pay even more for a souvenir).
You stay as long as you like but are well advised not to miss the last boat back at the end of the day.
You might think that's a crowded cruise but the island is as miserable an experience as the prison. It's cold and windy and, for some reason, an alarming number of visitors tend to prefer to wear shorts.
Alcatraz. The island and the prison on top.
There's no world class restaurant either.
If we recall accurately, this is the only set of digital images we ever took inside. They start outside, where you ascend from the dock to the prison with the water tower in the background, just to establish the location. "United States Penitentiary," the big sign on the wall says.
Inside, we show you what a cell looks like. Spartan. No place to recharge your smartphone.
Then we visit George Heck's cell. He was there 18 years, serving a sentence for kidnapping. He worked in the laundry, kitchen, rush shop and incinerator. And he liked to paint and draw.
He even had an exhibit of his work in San Francisco at which four of his painting were sold.
You see some of the common areas, like the mess hall, as well as the some signage about being sick and handling medication.
As a national park, Alcatraz probably looks the same today as it did then. But we have no intention of finding out.
