On Monday morning, a large number of tourists crossed the island of Alcatraz, staring at the small prison cells to learn about the most notorious prisoners living there and those trying to escape.
This tour is standard in respected San Francisco attractions, and it is impossible to avoid conversations on the old Cellblock walls, except for one theme.
Can you believe President Trump wants to transfer Alcatraz to federal prison?
Morning tour groups were filled with international travelers, many of whom received telephone alerts about Trump’s plans or read news reports in breakfast. Someone wondered if they might really be one of the tourists who were finally allowed to linger on the island. But no one seems to think that the idea is almost as clever as Mr. Trump imagined.
“I think it's a joke,” said Philipp Neumann, a visiting from Germany. “This is a ruin, isn't it, more or less?”
Yes, some buildings have deteriorated so there are no more roofs or full walls. The toilet in the cell was broken, and if there were any toilets, there was no running water or sewage system.
The exterior walls of the cell walls are so weak that they are purified and reinforced to prevent the concrete block from collapsing onto the visitors’ heads. Birds are deposited in most parts of the island. All supplies from food to fuel must be brought in by the ship.
Alcatraz has been frozen almost in time since the legendary prison saw the last prisoner 62 years ago. When the federal government shut down the facility, officials believed it was a deteriorating relic that was not enough to accommodate housing inmates.
Since then, the Devil has achieved even greater success with the novel than as a normal working prison. The 1962 film Birdman of Alcatraz was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Clint Eastwood's “Escape from Alcatraz” was a hit single in 1979 that dramatized a famous attempt to escape the island. “Rock” was a 1996 Hollywood blockbuster that brought Alcatraz to young moviegoers.
Mr. Trump may have “escaped from Alcatraz” when he announced on social media on Sunday that he directed federal agencies to rebuild and reopen the demonic “symbols of law, order and justice.”
When asked Monday how he came up with the idea, he said he should be a “mobile” and he praised the island's first-class security.
“No one escaped,” he said. “One guy almost got there, but they – they – they're known to find his clothes ripped apart. It's a lot of shark bites, a lot of problems.”
In “Escape from Alcatraz Island”, fragments of raincoat material are found floating in the bay.
Several years after federal officials closed Alcatraz Island with prisons, Native American activists occupied 19 months from 1969 to 1971 and sought the title of land in the central San Francisco Bay. The profession ended when armed federal agents withdraw the island.
Alcatraz, which was opened to the public in 1973, remains a park, museum and bird sanctuary operated by the National Park Service. Alcatraz was listed as a national historic landmark in 1986, with 1.4 million tourists each year.
On Monday, Mr. Trump called the Devils “a big Hulk sitting there rust and rotting.”
“It represents something that is both terrible, beautiful and painful, weak,” he said. “It has a lot of interesting qualities.”
Alcatraz is closed in part because running a prison on the island is much more expensive than on the mainland, because everything has to be shipped to the mainland. A few prisoners make the extra cost even more suspicious. During the years he served as a federal prison from 1934 to 1963, the demons handled a total of 1,576 prisoners—where 336 prisoners could be held at any given time.
By comparison, there are about 156,000 incarcerated people in federal prisons nationwide.
Prisons are also considered too easy to escape. Demonic historian John Martini volunteered on the island for 25 years, saying dozens of people escaped the island when the U.S. Army operated as a military prison, and at least five disappeared when Alcatraz was operated as a federal prison.
He said that included two people who came to the mainland and were captured, and three people who were dramatized in “Escape from Alcatraz Island.” The trio left the island's raft on the raft, never seen again, from the walls dug out of the prison.
This attempt to escape prompted George Christopher, then Mayor of San Francisco, to call for a jail closure. He said that apart from the lack of safety, the buildings have deteriorated and require millions of dollars in repairs. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered Alcatraz to close soon.
Tourism is one of San Francisco's top industries, and for decades, visiting Alcatraz has been traversing the Golden Gate Bridge or taking a cable car as an essential activity. The city is barely able to lose tourism funds as it faces a $1 billion budget loophole over the next two years.
Mayor Daniel Lurie said on Monday that Mr. Trump’s idea was “not a serious proposal.” Supervisory Board Chairman Rafael Mandelman is even more outspoken, calling it “usually ridiculous.”
Mr. Trump has set his sights on San Francisco this year. In February, the president ordered the federal government to significantly expand the functions of the Presidio Trust, which was established by representative Nancy Pelosi and oversee a popular square and enjoy stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The Trump administration said on Monday that it was a rule the president announced. Prison Director William K. Marshall III said he had ordered an immediate assessment of Alcatraz.
“We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order and justice,” he said in a statement. “We will actively work with law enforcement and other federal partners to restore this very important task.”
Federal officials called the island “USP Alcatraz Island,” abbreviation for the US Observation Alcatraz Island, a sentence that has not been used for decades and is a historical theme on the website of Alcatraz Island Park.
Few visitors believe this idea will actually come true on Monday.
Dutch tourists John and Jorien Lapierre said they were fans of Mr. Trump until his tariffs jeopardized the EU's economy. Still, Mr. Lapierre has the San Diego Dogs souvenir, which sounds interested in transforming Alcatraz back into a normal prison.
“But, from a historical perspective, you have to tear it down and build it up again,” he continued. “When we came here, it was like, wow, it looked like a movie.”
Tony and Deb Vickery visited from England, disembarked a cruise ship and spent the day on Alcatraz. They say they feel their journey is hitting all Trump hotspots.
They had just crossed the Panama Canal, and Mr. Trump hoped that the United States would control it and headed to Canada, and he suggested that the United States should seize the 51st state.
“We think he’s angry,” Ms Vickery said. “He lost the marble.”
