SECRETS OF ALCATRAZ

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[Music] every year more than 1 million visitors from around the world come to this spot the site of the federal penitentiary cell house on Alcatraz for most of them their hope is to walk down the great corridor known as Broadway and to see the cells of famous criminals such as Alphonse Scarface Capone and the Birdman robert stroud but that's only one small part of the much bigger story of alcatraz an island defined by isolation with a history that stretches back 15 thousand years to the end of the last ice age [Music] a hundred and fifty centuries ago the temperature of the world began to rise Ice Age glaciers melted the sea level rose and a hill in a valley became an island in a bay from that point on Alcatraz's future was set in stone it was rocking frequently cold and windy an island separated isolated from the nearest land by more than a mile of chilling waters and treacherous currents severe characteristics characteristics that would consistently define its relationship to humankind the first humans to sight and possibly visit Alcatraz were the Aboriginal people of the San Francisco Bay Area the early Native Americans they were foragers who relied on the Bay Area's plentiful plant and animal life they traveled across the bay and tule Reed boats and probably use the island as a safe haven in storms they would have seen it as a stark rock with little vegetation crowded with birds I imagine this place must have been this major egg basket and I can just picture them coming up to the shoreline and walking up to collect these eggs with these massive screeching of birds that would have been there and that was Alcatraz's relationship to humankind until about 200 years ago when Spaniards began exploring and colonizing the west coast of North America an expedition leader in 1775 named Juan Manuel de Ayala gave it its name when he noticed the islands many pelicans finally descubierto they were to the some fancy school the islands was so barren and craggy that it could provide no shelter even for small crowds and it was called the ELCA process because of the large numbers of them that were there seventy-five years later in the 1850s the Bay Area was a very different place California was now the 31st state the gold rush was on in the nearby Sierra Foothills San Francisco was a boomtown of more than 20,000 people and San Francisco Bay was the West Coast most important Harbor the US government decided that ships in the bay needed a lighthouse and the entire Bay Area and it's gold needed military protection Alcatraz was perfectly placed for both construction of the West Coast first operating lighthouse began in 1852 and the army began building its fortress on Alcatraz in 1853 second lieutenant James Birdseye Macpherson's letters describe the early conditions at the post on Alcatraz Island this beats all countries for wind I ever inhabited at ten o'clock a.m. every day the sea breeze commences and it is no gentle Zephyr I can assure you the dust flies in every direction the bay is covered with Whitecaps making it the worse crossing the Army's first objective was to build a cannon emplacements known as batteries they would eventually encircle the island each included protective walls large smoothbore cannons and underground storehouses and powder magazines today the cannons are gone but a few of the storage spaces remain below the recreation yard of the federal penitentiary you can find what's left in battery number seven [Music] at the top of the island the army built a defensive living quarters called the Citadel it's 3 foot thick walls held soldiers officers and officers families it did their best to make it home bringing their own furniture decorating importing topsoil and putting in gardens today the top floors of the Citadel are gone but parts of it can be found below the federal penitentiary cell house just one floor below the cell house you can still find the remains of the Citadel now this is the dry moat that once protected the Citadel used to be open to the sky but now that cell house is built on top of it and this is the exterior wall of the moat it's brick built on solid stone over here along the wall the basement wall of the Citadel you can still find the narrow slits from which soldiers would fire their rifles in case of attack [Music] the basement of the Citadel contains the remains of kitchens storerooms and a few bedrooms walking through these abandoned rooms you can get a sense of how the building was laid out and though you'll find no furniture nor artifacts you may find the occasional bit of soldiers graffiti not necessarily from the Urich was built but still a remarkable testament to its long use Albert Haring also built in the 1850s was the guard house this was the gateway to the rest of the island to get in enemies or visitor's had to cross a dry moat with a heavy wooden drawbridge and on either side they were confronted by cannons this is actually a cannon port or the gun embrasure and the cannon that sat here was a stubby little thing is called a twenty four pounder cannon cuz I could fire twenty four pound cannon ball that that big here they wouldn't bloat it with a cannon ball this howitzer would have been loaded up with canister shot which is exactly what it sounds like like a coffee canister but it would be full of dozens of iron balls about that big when it fired you see it's aimed right down the road leading down to the dock it would spray canister shot against anyone coming up the road and here in the basement of the guardhouse is the very first jail on Alcatraz Island now housed in this very tiny space were dozens of soldiers who had disobeyed orders broken laws or deserted also housed and here were Californians who were sympathetic to the Confederate side during the Civil War now in those days there were no doors in here only narrow gun slits and the wall is allowed in a little bit of light and the only access to this place was through that trapdoor in the ceiling [Music] during the 1860s and the Civil War years construction continued and the number of soldiers swelled to four hundred one of the most important new structures was an additional barracks building today you can recognize it as the bottom or first floor of building 64 it was designed to withstand updated and more powerful cannon fire to be bomb-proof by walking through its restored rear corridor you can see how it looked during those Civil War years now what about battles did Alcatraz ever fight well Alcatraz was never attacked but it did fire on a suspected enemy warship a misguided British flag ship the HMS Suffolk they fired a blank in the ships direction to get its attention the ship totally ignored the blank and Alcatraz did somethin he never done before it fired a cannonball intentionally just in front of the ship's bowels and that's called putting a shot across your bowels and you don't argue with a statement like that following the Civil War and throughout the remainder of the 19th century Alcatraz continued to develop and upgrade its weapons and defensive structures but as a fortress it could not keep up with the latest military innovations Alcatraz's cannons were no match now for the ironclad or iron hull ships and rifled guns and their pointed projectiles made the islands brick defensive walls obsolete and as the need for a fort in the middle of the bay decreased the need for an isolated army prison increased hundreds of prisoners were now regularly incarcerated on the island they were everything from Indians who had resisted the US Army to prisoners from the spanish-american war two people who had rejoiced at the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln for most of them prison life on Alcatraz was grim the conditions in the prison were at times atrocious lack of ventilation the men were in their cells which were basically look like horse stalls they were in those cells 16 17 hours a day they did never no toilets there were nice buckets they had a tradition called carrying the baby which meant you had a 24 pound ball chained to your leg they didn't make this up in the old movies that happened and while carrying the baby because didn't drag it with you you carried it under your arm shortly after the turn of the century military prison conditions changed mostly for the better the army came to terms with the idea that there was no longer a need for a fortress but there was a need for a better maintained prison in 1909 the top floors of the old Citadel were destroyed and replaced by the new permanent cell house the outside of which you see today this building could hold more than 500 inmates in 1915 when the cell house opened the Prison also had a new philosophy less retribution and more rehabilitation and to emphasize this it was given the name disciplinary barracks do you remember this building here right well it was this was this the PX or what was the bowling alley the ax and downstairs is the bowling alley they had two alleys down there and I remember one died there one day I got in there and I bowled a hundred and two and I was proud of myself there are those who still remember the days of the Disciplinary barracks ray and William Stewart jr. were the sons of an executive officer they were on Alcatraz from 1929 to 1930 for their memories of the prison suggests a somewhat relaxed environment it was a place where prisoners with good behavior records had frequent contact with officers and their families the Stewart's remembered their father's unusual introduction to prisoners when he first visited the islands barber shop when Dad first reported in here in 1929 he wanted to be shiny and Spoony and all ready for inspection so he decided to go to the post exchange down here just as you come up from the dock and they went in there and he went into the barbershop and the barbers hazardous item in the chair and started again gave him a haircut and he decided one a shave too and so the barber started dropping his you know they use those long razor blades in those days and so he's put a lot of lather on dad's face and has him lean him way back and dad says to him well how long have you been here and the guy says oh about seven years this is well how do you like civil service era the guy says oh I'm not civil service I'm a prisoner you're a president what are you in here for and the guy's been waiting all day for that he straps it a couple more times this first slit in the mass throat during the Disciplinary barracks era there were prisoners that even worked around and in the officers quarters they mowed the lawn washed dishes they even looked after the children here's young ray Stewart with one of these prisoners and they wore these white starched uniforms around all day and our mother would have a sum of her lady friends over 40 from San Francisco and they love to come to have these big fellows with their white uniforms waiting on him at the bridge table in contrast to the Stewart family's experience from a prisoner's perspective especially a less trusted prisoner Alcatraz was hardly quaint or picturesque around this time Alcatraz acquired one of its nicknames as Uncle Sam's Devil's Island these were the days of pounding rocks making little ones out of big ones a prisoner's life was frequently frightening and violent he grabbed his pants like this both of them and lift him dumped him over rural Nevins saw murder in the Disciplinary barracks story but never reported it fearing that the murderers would later come back and attack him he was sent to Alcatraz for striking an officer he compounded his problem by attacking a military prison orderly his punishment was solitary confinement that was a dream something that I'd like to forget I personally I don't believe that there's any worse punishment than putting a man in a cell where you can't even see your hands in front of you you have a cement floor to sleep on and all you can do is think and you don't think too good of things I'll tell you I don't think that I could go through it again despite the harshness of life for some the program was generally considered a success many of the inmates received vocational training at this facility on the north side of the island called the model industries building many of them ultimately returned to the regular army or were released to society but running a prison on an isolated island that had no water and had to supply its own electricity was extremely expensive and in 1933 the Army decided to close down the disciplinary barracks in the early 1930s FBI director J Edgar Hoover and the Justice Department began looking for a new maximum-security prison these were the days of the depression Prohibition bootleggers and organized crime Hoover and the Justice Department were cracking down and the federal penitentiary population was rising the government transferred Alcatraz from the military to the Justice Department hoping to create a super prison the theme being simply if you're going to run prisons in an orderly way you have to have some place where you put persons that you've identified as basically subverting the philosophy behind the operation they're so tried they're so troublesome they're so problematic that you just have to take them out and put them someplace where they're isolated a compact area and you also have to create somewhat of an image for the rest of the population so that the rest of the population understands it can actually get worse than this these people were like the old rotten apple in the barrel they were infecting the other prisoners and disrupting the orderly routine of the institution and the only way in which the institution could operate effectively was its rehabilitation program was to get these rotten apples out of the barrel so in effect Alcatraz became the barrel to which these people were sent ramen inaccessible the maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz opened in 1934 the first 32 inmates were army prisoners left over from the Disciplinary barracks the first group to come from another prison was from the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island in Washington State throughout the year more and more came and by the end of the first year there were more than 200 for all prisoners arriving at Alcatraz was an intimidating experience a convicted bank robber Leon whitey Thompson remembers his arrival and was on a boat at about 16 pounds of shackles an iron army and I was just blinded by total hatred I couldn't see nothing around me that's how blinded I was at hatred and I come to the rack and for the next four years I spent 24 and a half years in the penitentiary but my little over four years on Alcatraz was harder on me than the other twenty years in prison the worst of the worst the toughest of the tough were sent to Alcatraz they included criminals like Alphonse Scarface Capone George Machine Gun Kelly Alvin creepy Karpis and the Birdman Robert Stroud almost all of them began their time in other Penitentiary's there they developed troublesome records and because of this were transferred to Alcatraz one of the few exceptions was Morton Sobell he was prosecuted along with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying they were executed he went directly to Alcatraz my lawyer contacted a high-level lawyer in Washington to get into the case and he told them jed guruva was responsible for my being sent here and that he was did one tangle with jeb hoover so I mean that's the answer to your question it was Jo Cooper's decision and when he made a decision you know that nobody bucked at not even James V Bennett the director of the Bureau of prison the famous and the infamous they were all isolated and in prison boasting only for rice food clothing shelter and medical care everything else was a privilege that had to be earned each inmate had a five foot by nine foot cell they were locked up every day from approximately 5:30 at night to 7:15 in the morning they were closely supervised there was a security ratio of one guard for every three inmates their daily routine was designed for maximum control and conformity good next block you couldn't explore you marched to the dining room and a prescribed path with everybody else you marched back from the dining room on the same path that was your extent of the cell house exploration just the prescribed path the shortest path from your cell to the dining room these men had practically no privileges they could not write a letter home without it being censored they could not receive anything without it being censored they had acts they did not have access to newspapers they had access to a limited number of magazines whatever came in or went out was censored by somebody Kinnear wasn't a life it wasn't even existing because to me is like time is stopped he's dead nothing meant anything anymore didn't have nothing to look forward each day even to the point where you didn't even care about the meals anymore to me it was like an engine you put some gasoline in and the engine keeps burning but no emotions no feelings that's the way I felt each day the privileges that could be earned were few but for the conforming inmate there were books from the library a chance to paint or to play a musical instrument inmates could also work in the new industries building on the northwest side of the island doing laundry building furniture making gloves or working in the metal or carpentry shops for many though the most significant privilege was visiting the recreation yard on weekends well most of the time here the weather was not sunny like it is today so you had the fog the drizzle many times we were out here when it was drizzling and we used to play bridge behind those two fences sitting down with our raincoats hunched over our car table because it was gettin out of the cell house object was to get out of the cell house so even if you didn't have anything to do they'd be playing baseball in this diamond and we'd be walking back and forth over here and of course occasionally aboard it is meant to be bought handball players on that wall is this sort of a place of freedom for us yes yes because you could do what you wanted to you could sit on the steps and talk a watch you could walk you could play cards you've had a choice here Richard didn't have back there you will you put it right on the on the head this was this was freedom freedom to were to do what you wanted to do the other extreme was the complete loss of choice privileges and human contact here in d-block in solitary confinement also known as the hole here are the most troublesome prisoners were deprived of light and sound for as many as 19 days in a row it was cold and mentally torturous it led to some unique methods of passing time turn around in circles then get down on my hands and knees and see if I can fight and sometimes it would take me the longest I'd buy a button but you knew the button had to be here it couldn't be anywhere else and I would do this over and over again until my arm my hands and my knees it's a sore I couldn't find I couldn't stand anymore I still haven't found the button but it's here what's here well even right now you really understand being isolated when you can't hear anything and you can't see anything yeah and you're totally alone it's a real mental struggle to keep yourself together I mean you want to scream you want to cry and believe it many times you crying here my most vivid memory at this point was when the prisoners would would yell at night and I could hear them up there I mean everyone in this building could hear them and they would be pretty loud just a two-minute stroll below the cell house on the top floors of the barracks building and in the apartment buildings on the old army parade ground there was another kind of life going on this was the home life of the correctional officers and their families theirs was a traditional almost suburban lifestyle but one also affected by the isolation of the island transportation on the warden Johnston the penitentiaries boat determined when they shopped when they went to school and when they went on dates it was a lifestyle that fascinated outsiders oh I think they thought it was cool or weird take your pick I mean people were fascinated even when I was in the second grade my teachers would you know do they want to be me to do show-and-tell about Alcatraz you know that was always a subject what I did on my summer vacation living on Alcatraz [Music] though there were visitors the community in general kept to itself their fathers worked together their parents socialized together and the children played together the children's play area was the parade ground here they enjoyed baseball and played games like most kids at the time but their games were frequently influenced by the penitentiary the big tradition on Alcatraz among the kids was to make little guns with with popsicle sticks and you know paper clips or whatever rubber bands and we'd have games guards and cons some of us would play the convicts which was the most fun part and then others would play the guards and we break out of whatever prison had been devised and run away and try to be you know try to escape the island the children rarely came in contact with the prisoners the prisoners while moving around the island on work duty were always closely supervised by a correctional officer but there were exceptions Bob Ritz grew up in San Francisco he met his wife Joyce while her father worked on the island as a guard Larry Boyd's father was also a guard Joyce remembers the day Larry and she got close to some prisoners a day the warden concerned about the islands image ordered all the children's toy rubber band guns to be confiscated one of the officers came down with a pickup truck had two convicts and we all lined up right about where we are now and all gave up our rubber guns all in the back of the truck and turned around and answer driving out the convicts are busy throwing the rubber guns back to pick up our guns we all ran home and hit those guns but I think the word went out and they were confiscated again those convicts got the biggest kick out of throwing back those guns to us kids there was an incidence right here when I was about 8 when a prisoner was working back behind the fence they were cleaning two prisoners in a guard they found a little handball which was the most coveted thing that a kid could get on the island the hand balls were from the prisoners they they'd roll over the wall or you know fly over the wall and roll down the hill and they'd get hidden and he had found the little black hand ball a little hard rubber ball and with the guards permission he had beckoned to me I was in this very same place and I went over to the very shyly to the fence because I was aware that I was doing something that I thought I wasn't allowed to do right and he pushed the ball through the fence to me and you know I was eight years old this was my first big time dilemma you know I'm supposed to be polite to adults but I'm not supposed to talk to prisoners so it was very much of a dilemma as to what to say I'm sure I must have mumbled thank you but I I'm equally sure he didn't hear me you know the story I told you about almost been shot in probably the most powerful way prison life influenced the families was when there was a breakout they were rare but when it happened the island came to attention and families once again realized how isolated they were Joyce Ritz remembers the 1939 escape of five inmates led by dr. Kerr and how she and her mother got locked out of their quarters so I went around the side of the house I said oh don't worry that the kitchen windows over went around the side of the house went to climb in the kitchen window got about halfway in and agar a male person called hold and I looked up and there was a gun that big and just right on top of me and my poor mother ran around and started jumping up and down like rump and Skelton screaming don't shoot it's just Joyce oh shoot on the rock pitch battle raged from the first alarm when throughout the history of the federal penitentiary there were 14 escape attempts by 36 men seven were shot and killed two drowned and only five were never accounted for escape was frequently thought of but rarely attempted the isolation and security of the island made any attempt seem almost suicidal but driven by confinement escape attempts did occur convicted kidnapper Jim Quillin remembers his this is a kitchen basement and this is an area here that was divided off from the rest of it with a low retaining wall there were we could walk back and forth in here one day while walking and looking for a way to escape we recognized looked saw this litigant here and wonder what was in here and we've got the lock picked and found out that there was a passageway under here down all the way to what we thought went clear to the powerhouse we got in there and explored it got a flashlight but we couldn't go out the end because it been blocked off so we decided to try to go through the walls now that he didn't hear varied from a hundred and forty five to one hundred and sixty degrees it was too narrow and too small for two people to turn around in so we have to have one person back in one person crawl and then reverse it when we came out you would sweat this well would hit those pipes and it was just sizzle and if you broke one of the pipes you were going to be instantly cooked because that was live hot steam that was my greatest fear we tried real hard to get through the wall down there but unfortunately somebody snitched this off and as a consequence we went to D block and so but if we had succeeded in getting through the wall it wouldn't have went anywhere we had been given bomb information [Music] the most famous escape in the history of alcatraz occurred in 1962 and was popularized by the clint eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz the inmates were Frank Lee Morris and the Anglin brothers John and Clarence this attempt exemplifies how creative and clever the inmates at Alcatraz could be but also how it decreased budgets by 1962 had affected security of this is John Anglin cell now for the Englund and Morris to escape at night they had to convince guards if they were sound asleep so they built dummy heads made out of cement and human hair prior to the escape they also fashioned and used these tools including this electric drill made out of barber clippers to enlarge the ventilation holes in their cells now in the early days of the prison none of this would have been possible these cells were subject to monthly shakedowns or inspections in those days but by 1962 none of this was happening finally on the night of the escape the inmates removed false walls and grills and squeezed through the holes in their cells into a utility corridor the Anglin brothers and Morris scrambled all the way up the pipes to the top of the third tier of cells on B block this was really a safe place for them because although it was with an easy view of the gun gallery the prison could no longer afford to keep guards stationed there so for weeks and weeks this was a private little workshop where the inmates prepared their escape during this time they made ingenious equipment such as this life preserver made out of stolen raincoats and this flashlight made out of a battery of bulb and a pillbox well on the night of the escape they gathered their equipment and made for the cell house roof through this hole the escapees popped the top of a ventilator shaft and came through and then began to run across the roof of the cell house carrying with them their equipment the raft their life preservers an air pump and a hundred feet of electrical cord and I made it right here to this spot now for a long time that would have been impossible because for many years there was a guard booth back there on the roof of the cell house but by 1962 with budget cuts buthe had been removed and the north side of the island was also unprotected so at night the escapees were able to move without being seen they shimmy down a chimney using their electrical cord I ran to the north side of the island and escaped into the bay and they were never seen again I reported to within a year attorney General Robert F Kennedy ordered Alcatraz to be closed to balance he said the needs of deterrence and detention with the possibilities of rehabilitation Alcatraz was no longer considered effective and managing incorrigible inmates that combined with public criticism of the harshness here and the sheer cost of operating a deteriorating facility ensured the prison's end now what to do with the island called Alcatraz the big thing was the United Nations Monument they wanted to put a monument similar to the Statue of Liberty here in the bay in 1964 the island was transferred to the government's General Services Administration this man Tom Scott was given the job of selling the island over the next five years a variety of ideas emerged a university for American Indians an international center for the humanities and even a gambling casino one idea was to sell it for about four million dollars to oil millionaire Lamar Hunt he wanted to develop the island for boutiques apartments condominiums and a Space Museum there was an artist rendition of his Space Needle type thing that was was to go on the parade field down here and the day after it appeared to him the Chronicle in the city hurricane called it a I don't know if I can say this word you can take it out if you don't need it but he called it a phallic symbol with a 10-gallon hat on top and mr. hutton being a private person and didn't want to get all this publicity said he was not interested in the island anymore [Music] by the late 1960s there was still no decision on the future of Alcatraz but the times they were a-changin Richard Nixon who was president there was a war going on in Vietnam the civil rights movement was expanding people were demonstrating and minorities were discovering new identities and developing new political power in this environment Alcatraz became the center of the Native American Indian Movement one lone little light bulb was up here that lit this way as the eighty Indians came off the boats onto the water barge up the ramp while the security guard for the island was jumping up and down the same on a cold November morning in 1969 a group of American Indians landed on Alcatraz this wasn't the first occupation by Native Americans actually it was the fourth since the closing of the federal penitentiary but this one had the numbers and staying power it would permanently change the image of American Indians and Alcatraz the idea of Alcatraz was a had a special appeal force because Alcatraz was a an abandoned piece of federal property a prisoner and many of us then as well as many of us today believed that American Indian reservations were in fact prisoner of war camps at the end of the Indian Wars symbolism for one thing and again visibility you know if we if we had done something like Alcatraz and the remote woods of Mendocino County our mountains there how long would we have lasted without the media and public looking right over the shoulders of the government though many of the first Indians on the island were surprised by it the government was nervous about removing them and causing negative publicity so a planned overnight show of strength and bravado turned into a 19-month political demonstration it had a tremendous effect on the Indian community everywhere and it was I mean after years and years and years of having land taken from people after years and years of not having any real victories after years and years of degradation and defeat it became this major symbol of just stepping in and taking over something our stand is Alcatraz Island it it's a stand of self-determination but the days of relation ended quickly two months after the occupation began tragedy hit the Indians and the family of Richard Oakes a student leader and unifier on the island his 12 year old daughter fell over the third floor railing of one of the islands apartment buildings some said it was murder supported by a rival leader others just an accident Yvonne Oakes died on January 8th that same day Richard Oakes announced that he would end his occupation of Alcatraz the beginning of the end in my opinion was when Richard Oakes daughter was killed here on the island that really brought a split in the factions one Richards daughter died I understood what we were doing out here was very serious very dangerous and I think it caused a crisis in the leadership from that point on dissension increased leadership was unclear but despite internal problems there was still widespread support there were frequent visitors to the island bringing supplies and good wishes but also there were new and less politically motivated visitors to Alcatraz there began to be a perception out in the Indian community and the non-indian community that this is a good place to come for a meal to stay for free for a while and I began to attract more and more people whom we would today probably call street people they were the real troublemakers at the beginning then they begin to agitate the other people on the island we got a lot of drunkenness a lot of drug use and this sort of thing and a lot of infighting among the Indians themselves in May of 1970 fires destroyed some of the historic buildings on the island the lighthouse residence the old post exchange and the wardens house some blamed the Indians some blamed government provocateurs attempting to discredit the Indians the truth is still unknown but public support was waning the number of Indians on the island was declining and the government realized it could now take back control of Alcatraz On June 11th 1971 20 federal marshals landed and removed the remaining 15 occupiers the occupation was over but for the American Indians it was just the beginning of their political movement I think the significance of the aquifers occupation is that it demonstrated clearly a growing sophistication on the part of the American Indians to address their need their ability to launch massive political movements that clearly endeared themselves to the American people following the occupation in 1971 the General Services Administration examined the apartment buildings that were here on the parade ground now these were homes for guards and families during the penitentiary years they were also used and lived in during the nineteen months of the Indian occupation the GSA found that they were severely damaged that they were a hazard too expensive to repair so the GSA tore them down and then in 1972 these ruins on the rest of Alcatraz became the responsibility of the National Park Service as part of the newly created Golden Gate National Recreation Area [Music] it's impressive radius embassy you have to see it today the Golden Gate National Recreation Area stretches across 75 thousand acres of the San Francisco Bay Area it is the world's largest and most visited urban park and at its heart is Alcatraz an isolated island surrounded by millions of people a park with an important challenge how to continue to balance the needs of humankind with the needs of nature the United Nations has recognized this and included Alcatraz as part of an international biosphere reserve well that's the excitement that we get in our work is that it's not always easy to understand exactly how best to put together the mosaic I think as we look at Alcatraz we're dealing with multiple layers of history and the cultural landscape and in the buildings and on the other side we're looking at a growing diversity of the wildlife population there but it's likes me the most about Alcatraz is that the natural sight of Alcatraz does exist in spite of everything around it surprisingly throughout Alcatraz's history humankind's effect on nature has been remarkably positive for instance in the 1850s the blasting of the cliffs required for building the first batteries helped to create Alcatraz's lively tide pools and as early as 1868 visitors to Alcatraz imported soil and planted gardens the greatest contribution probably came in the era of the Disciplinary barracks in 1924 the California's spring blossom and a wildflower Association planted 300 trees and shrubs and a hundred pounds of flower seeds these gardens were immaculately maintained until the closing of the federal penitentiary in 1963 the met point on most of the island has grown wild and that's created the perfect habitat for some remarkable birds today Alcatraz has an impressive colony a black crown night herons and one of the largest rookeries on the west coast for Western gulls but nature's influence on humankind has been less complimentary though we benefit from the beauty of the plant and animal life the winds the cold the salt air all of cause the historical structures to quickly deteriorate fortunately the National Park Service has come up with a unique solution they're bringing prisoners back to the island I'm doing time on the rock my clock is running right now the prison has been able to help the Park Service by providing inmate labor to do work that otherwise would not be able to get done because of a lack of resources or staff and in turn the Park Service is providing us with some great job opportunities for federal inmates over the last few years they painted buildings repaired roads done landscaping this time they're repairing a rusted and corroded guard tower mat Koken is a trained iron worker from the federal prison in Pleasanton California he's doing some of his time on Alcatraz as an inmate it's it's a breath of fresh air because it's putting my skills to work and something that I feel has a semblance of value has its you know a little hurt here and there you know you can see freedom but it's only that far away but otherwise I Alcatraz Island is isolation has defined its use and influence through every era of human history from the early Native American times to the fortress area from its time as a military prison and federal penitentiary to the Indian occupation and now as a special example of how humankind and nature can co-exist there's so much here and each person who touches takes away with him or her their own special meaning wherever you wander around this island you you can't avoid traces of the Army's presence on this island in effect Alcatraz was not a brutal place where men were beaten needlessly or where they were starved you can't stop crying and mentally abused people and that's not the way to do it we've got to do it through education some of them will nest right along the roadway gives us folks a wonderful opportunity to to see these birds up very close for many people the world over it was a surprise to hear American Indians were still living and it was definitely a statement that were alive but not well it did its job we're supposed to punish me it punished me this island it's part of our human history and part of our natural history for those who come out here there's a chance to experience its isolation and the perspective it gives us on our past and our future and every time you return you can explore - and unravel for yourself the secrets of Alcatraz [Music] you [Music]

Info

Channel: Guy Cole

Views: 255,307

Rating: 4.5505319 out of 5

Keywords: Alcatraz, Prison, Federal, Penitentiary, Jail, Rock, San Francisco Bay, Escape, Time, Cellhouse, Mess Hall, Guard, Yard, Death

Id: RWK3VfJhcBA

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 47min 35sec (2855 seconds)

Published: Fri May 18 2018

Reddit Comments

You do the crime u serve the time! Prison's were built to punish, and protect society from u. It was meant to change u enough to where u'd never want to return! However, the brutality sometimes was more severe then the crime. It makes u stop to think, some of the guard's should've been placed in a cell!! This was a very good documentary on the building in the 1800s. Very well done. Thank u for the education on Alcatraz. 4/16/19

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/YOUREABOT 📅︎︎ Jun 14 2019 🗫︎ replies

scary horrible conditions cruel guards rats seagulls pooping everywhere

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/YOUREABOT 📅︎︎ Jun 14 2019 🗫︎ replies