Alcatraz

On your right, you’ll see Pier 33, where boats depart for Alcatraz, San Francisco’s main attraction. As we won’t be able to go all the way there with you, I’d like to take you on a tour of the 3D model of one of the world’s most famous prisons! You’ll be able to see it in its integrity, before going to see it in situ, if you wish. Before it housed the United States’ most notorious criminals, Alcatraz was populated by birds, in particular gannets, or Alcatraces in Spanish, hence the name. So why has a prison become so well-known and so visited? Known as “The Rock”, the island is obvisoulsy surrounded by rocks, and is in the middle of an icy, shark-infested sea. It has the reputation of being impossible to escape from. Well, in reality the sharks in San Francisco Bay are not dangerous, but still, the prison is impressive. And yet, two inmates, the Anglins brothers, are going to make a run for it by digging a tunnel in their cell and building a raft. If you take the tour, you’ll see their cell in pristine condition, with the fake papier-mache heads they had installed in their beds to fool the guards. In short, cinema became fascinated with the story and turned the spotlight on Alcatraz, which became an international star. Although this military camp fascinates and sparks the imagination, in reality, conditions of incarceration were quite good, and many inmates asked to be transfered there. In reality it wasn’t so much the tough guys that where sent her but rather the Prisoners who were most likely to seek to escape. This was the case, for example, of the most notorious Mafioso, Al Capone, known as Scarface, who served part of his sentence for tax fraud from 1934 to 1939, before being transferred to another penitentiary and then paroled. In 1963, due to the high cost of this isolated prison, the Minister of Justice closed it down and transferred the prisoners to mainland. What was to be done with the military camp? A billionaire suggested to create an amusement park on the theme of the conquest of space. The project was fiercely opposed by indigenous militants, who occupied the island on several occasions. So, in 1973, it was decided to open the island to visitors to see what happened.
The rest is history: success was immediate, and Alcatraz’s popularity skyrocketed. The island became the region’s most popular tourist attraction, and became firmly established in popular culture as well as collective imagination.