Trump Alone On An Island With Plan To Reopen Infamous Alcatraz

ALCATRAZ ISLAND, California — If the national park rangers of Alcatraz are soon replaced by the prison wardens of California’s newest penitentiary, the throngs of tourists marching across the decaying 22-acre fortress Monday morning will serve as a strange dream between two eras of incarceration.

Today, children in strollers point with wonder at 9-by-5-foot jail cells. Seagulls and shorebirds lay nested in the colonized rubble of collapsed structures. At the gift shop, visitors purchase Alcatraz guard whistles and tin prisoner cups for $10.95 a pop.

“Welcome to your national parks,” a ranger named Matt Connelly shouted to tourists filing off the ferry from San Francisco on Monday. “We hope you have a safe and pleasant trip to Alcatraz Island.”

In the hours since President Donald Trump declared his plans to reopen a “substantially enlarged” Alcatraz to “house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” California politicians have nearly universally derided the idea as a distraction, a fantasy, or a farce. State Sen. Scott Wiener called the proposal “absurd on its face.” Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi described the idea as unserious, a sentiment that current San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie echoed at a news conference Monday morning.

In an interview, Nancy Tung, chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, said she viewed Trump’s plan as “asinine.”

“I’m kind of at a loss for words on this,” Tung said. “The way for the country to project strength is not by returning to the past. The days of Alcatraz being a place for incarceration have long since passed.”

Trump’s declaration marked another pivot point in the strange and sordid history of Alcatraz, a large rock about 1.5 miles offshore from San Francisco. Originally a fort, the site was briefly operated as a military prison before opening as a federal penitentiary in 1934.

Over the years, the prison built a reputation for ruthless conditions that challenged the sanity of its inmates. Escape was nearly impossible and almost certainly deadly. Punishment was frequent and usually brutal. Then, as Trump hopes it will be again, the island was used to house the country's most violent and reviled prisoners. In 1963, the prison was closed due to high operating costs and better facilities on-shore.

Today, the park prioritizes safety, warning visitors of tripping hazards and uneven pavement. Handrails line the sidewalks, leading to informational plaques about the salamanders and deer mice that now live on the island.

And like San Francisco’s politicians, park visitors too seem to view the idea of a reborn Alcatraz prison as an implausibility.

“It’s a mind game,” said one Argentine tourist. “Insanity,” said a Canadian. (Both declined to share their names.)

“I say if this is what we need to do, then do it,” said Stephanie Bishop, a visitor from Florida. “But if we don’t, then maybe just leave it alone.”

The park presents itself as a monument to dark moments in American history. A quote from Nelson Mandela covering one wall reads “a nation should be judged not by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” A banner near the entrance reads, “if you break the rules, you go to prison. If you break the prison rules, you go to Alcatraz.” There are large exhibits on mass incarceration. Visitors can enter a windowless cell and close the door for a brief taste of solitary confinement.

But speaking at an unrelated White House event Monday morning, Trump called Alcatraz, the mythical inescapable prison, a symbol of a rougher, tougher America. It is a place, he said, that “represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order.”

“It housed the most violent criminals in the world and nobody ever escaped,” Trump said to reporters. “It is, right now, a museum, believe it or not.”