Latest news with #EscapeFromAlcatraz
The Star
19-05-2025
- The Star
Alcatraz: Five things you didn't know about the notorious American prison
Alcatraz, which started as a military jail before becoming a federal prison, has been closed for more than six decades. — Reuters Situated on a tiny island off San Francisco, Alcatraz prison for years held high-profile criminals before it was decommissioned and turned into a popular tourist attraction. Here are five things to know about the notorious California jail that United States president Donald Trump wants to see brought back into operation. 1. Isolated The prison sits on Alcatraz Island, a rocky slab of nearly 9ha in San Francisco Bay, 2km from the mainland. The jail, which closed its doors in 1963 after 29 years in operation, is flanked by cold water with strong currents. It was rumoured to be surrounded by man-eating sharks, but the sharks that live in the bay are actually only bottom-feeders. 2. Infamous inmates Several notorious criminals were held at Alcatraz after it was transformed in 1934 from a military jail to a maximum-security federal prison. They included Al Capone – the Chicago crime boss of the Prohibition era – as well as George 'Machine-Gun' Kelly and Alvin Karpis, once declared 'Public Enemy No. 1' by the FBI. 3. Escape attempts From 1934 to 1963, a total of 36 men were involved in 14 separate escape attempts, according to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). In 1962, three inmates fled the prison after they put papier-mache model heads in their beds and broke out through ventilation ducts before leaving the island on a raft. Their fate remains a mystery, and the getaway was recounted in the 1979 film Escape From Alcatraz, starring Clint Eastwood as the ringleader, Frank Morris. 4. Expensive operation Alcatraz was almost three times more expensive than any other federal prison due to its remote location, according to the BOP. Costly necessities included food shipments to the island and the weekly delivery of 3.8 million litres of drinking water. It never reached its capacity of 336 inmates and at any given time held less than 1% of the federal prison population, the BOP says. 5. Tourist hotspot After it shuttered in the 1960s due to operating costs, Alcatraz Island became part of the National Parks network and opened to the public in 1973. More than a million people visit the island each year, with many drawn to exploring its morbid past. – AFP
News.com.au
12-05-2025
- News.com.au
I grew up on Alcatraz — this is what living on the notorious prison island was really like
President Donald Trump may want to open up the once-notorious Alcatraz Island prison to again house the 'worst of the worst' criminals, but one woman remembers 'The Rock' as a wonderful place to grow up. 'Weren't you scared?' is a question that Jolene Babyak routinely gets about her childhood on a prison island known for housing infamous criminals such as gangsters Al Capone, George 'Machine Gun' Kelly, and Mickey Cohen. Located about 2km off the San Francisco shore and overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, the federal penitentiary, which once housed approximately 250 men, became famous for being 'impossible' to escape — though many tried, Realtor reports. Only five succeeded in getting off the island, but are missing and presumed to have drowned in the surrounding choppy waters of San Francisco Bay. Many movies were based on the notorious prison, including Clint Eastwood's 1979 film 'Escape from Alcatraz.' But 'scared' is not a word that Babyak would use to describe living on the island. 'We had a very tight-knit community, plenty of entertainment, a low-crime neighbourhood, and million dollar views!' she says. The children of Alcatraz Most people don't realise prison staff and their children lived on the island alongside the prisoners. Babyak resided there from 1954 to 1955 (from the age of 7 to 9) and again in 1962 when she was 15 years old. Her father, Arthur Dollison, was the associate and also acting warden. With her parents and her two older siblings, Babyak first lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Building 64, an old military barracks. The bottom portion of the building dated back to the 1860s, and the top (where they lived) was finished in 1906. Babyak and her sister, Corinne (who passed away in 2016), shared one large bedroom, while her brother got an 'unlighted hallway.' The island had a small general store and a post office but not much else. There wasn't a hospital or medical clinic. 'Don't get hurt,' was the advice the kids got. Babyak, who today is one of the island's premier historians and has written several books about the prison, once fell and hit her head. A 'minimally trained' medical technician monitored her for a concussion, but that was all for medical care. 'If it was really serious, like you were bleeding out, you'd have to go to the city,' she says. This required catching a ferry, which ran frequently from a dock on the island. As a second grader in the 1950s, Babyak was sent into the city by herself for school. 'Different times,' she says, laughing. She and other kids from the island would take the ferry and then a bus to their school, and back again. No telephones on the island could reach the city, so once she left for the day, she was essentially on her own — with a few older kids to make sure she got around OK. Classmates knew she lived on the notorious island. 'They were fascinated,' she says. 'They mostly wanted to know about Al Capone, who was dead by then. I got the feeling they thought that the kids and prisoners all ate dinner together at one long table.' A unique — but 'ideal' — childhood She remembers a childhood full of adults who were 'very actively involved' in their kids' lives — constantly putting on events, parties, dances, 'watermelon feeds,' and performances to keep the young ones occupied and out of trouble. While they all played on a large playground in the middle of the island, adults were constantly monitoring them, either keeping watch from the surrounding homes' windows or as the men walked past while going to and from prison work shifts. As a teen, Babyak enjoyed her first kiss after an island 'beatnik'-themed party with another teen resident. 'We had this life on a prison island that was ideal,' she says. She notes that this is the exact opposite of the childhood most of the prisoners had, and why they ended up where they did. 'They were throwaway kids,' she says. 'The product of trauma.' As an adult, she realised that the prisoners weren't there because of their supposed terrible crimes but because of their anti-social behaviour in other prisons — and that most were mentally ill. Despite growing up always being told that her prisoner neighbours were the 'worst of the worst' offenders, Babyak is adamant that she was never frightened of them. One prisoner even handed her a stray ball through a fence. 'He must have gotten permission from a guard,' she says. Later on, other prisoners told her they had enjoyed listening to the sound of children playing, that it brought a bit of sunshine and normalcy to their lives. Others, however, said they felt sorry for the kids, imagining them to be 'trapped' on the island. An infamous escape Babyak was living in a nicer duplex house on the island in 1962, when the island's most infamous escape happened. She was asleep when an alarm jolted her awake. 'My mother met me on the stairs, and she said, 'Get dressed, there's been an escape, we have to search the house,'' she says. She and her mother, Evelyn, had to go down to the basement to see if the three escapees were hiding out there. 'That part was a little scary,' she says, though her mother told her in all likelihood the men had already gotten off the island. The escapees were three bank robbers, John Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin. Their ingenious escape involved putting papier-mache model heads resembling their own heads into their beds, breaking out of the prison via ventilation ducts, and fleeing aboard an improvised inflatable raft. While it assumed they all drowned, their bodies were never found, leaving open the possibility that the trio enjoyed freedom for the rest of their lives. But Babyak doubts this. 'They didn't have food or money and two had never been to San Francisco before. They were rural farm kids,' she says. She believes the men would have committed another crime eventually and been found out. Alcatraz reboot? Alcatraz is suddenly in the spotlight after Trump said he wants to reopen the island to prisoners, calling it a 'symbol of law and order.' The penitentiary was shut down in 1962 due to the difficulty and high costs associated with maintaining it. For one, there is no real sewage system — sewage was dumped into the bay. Water had to be brought in via a boat and stored in a large tank. For the small amount of prisoners it housed, only about 250, the cost wasn't worth it. 'It's been very odd and unexpected,' Babyak says of the surge of media attention due to the president's remarks. Today, the island is a tourist attraction. Babyak has been selling books and giving talks there for 30 years, along with former prisoners and at least one other former resident. The speakers have dwindled over the years, as more people who lived on the island pass away. Babyak says she cherishes her time on the notorious island and was sad to leave when it closed. 'We were all sad,' she says. 'The prisoners — not so much.'
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Trump Busted Stealing His Policy Ideas From TV... Again
Donald Trump's decision to reopen Alcatraz may have been inspired by Hollywood. On Sunday the president ordered the crumbling prison, currently used as a park and museum, to be reinstated—just hours after his local TV station aired a legendary movie about a real-life escape from the island penitentiary. The president, as usual, spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago bolthole in Palm Beach, South Florida, and presumably—between rounds of golf—had time to catch the 1979 classic Escape from Alcatraz. Local TV listings show that it aired on Miami's local PBS affiliate, WLRN 26, at 9 p.m. Saturday. It was aired again at 11 a.m. Sunday. At around 6 p.m. Sunday, Trump demanded that the tourist destination be brought back to its former maximum security glory. 'REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. 'When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm.' On Monday he was pressed on where the idea came from. He gave a rambling answer about how he should have been a 'moviemaker,' and seemed to suggest that he had recently seen the prison drama. 'I was supposed to be a moviemaker,' Trump said. 'It represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and is, I would say, the ultimate. Sing Sing and Alcatraz, right? The movies.' Coincidentally, just minutes after his Sunday evening diktat about re-opening Alcatraz, Trump followed up with another post—announcing a 100 percent tariff on films made outside of the U.S. 'Nobody ever escaped,' Trump said Monday, lauding the prison's security. 'One person almost got there, but they—as you know the story—they found his clothing rather badly ripped up. It was a lot of shark bites, a lot of problems.' He appeared to be referencing a scene in Escape from Alcatraz that shows a tattered raincoat floating in San Francisco Bay. The escapees had crafted a raft using raincoats, before using it to attempt to reach the mainland. 'It sort of represents something that's both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak,' he added. 'It's got a lot of qualities that are interesting.' CNN reported in 2018 that 'TV serves as the lens through which he views the world,' while one report from the New York Times said Trump watches between four and eight hours daily. He denied this. Business Insider reported that he gorged on seven hours of TV every day during COVID lockdowns. The film, starring Clint Eastwood, details the daring 1962 escape attempt perpetrated by Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin. They made it off the island in their makeshift raft but what happened next 'remains a mystery,' according to the FBI. No credible evidence has emerged to suggest the men are still alive, either in the U.S. or overseas. The FBI officially closed its case on Dec. 31, 1979. The prison closed in 1963. Responsibility for the case was handed to the U.S. Marshals Service, which continues to investigate in the unlikely event the trio is still alive. Trump's idea, meanwhile, is likely to receive pushback—not least because of the site's importance as a tourist destination. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie on Monday said that it is 'not a serious proposal.' Rafael Mandelman, president of the Board of Supervisors, called it 'typically absurd.' But William K. Marshall III, director of the Bureau of Prisons, 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 be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission.' Trump, a one-time reality TV star, admitted in 2018 that he pardoned conservative author Dinesh D'Souza, jailed over an illegal campaign contribution, after seeing him on television. 'I don't know him, I never met him. I called him last night, first time I've ever spoken to him. I said I'm pardoning you. Nobody asked me to do it,' he said at the time. 'I didn't know him. I read the papers. I see him on television.' CNN reported that 'executive time' is moulded into Trump's weekly schedule. During this time he watches taped and live TV and usually reacts to what he sees with social media posts. In 2016, Trump even admitted that he looked for military advice on cable channels. 'Well, I watch the shows. I mean, I really see a lot of great—you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows, and you have the generals," he told Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd. More recently, Trump picked Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be his secretary of defense. He also assembled a crack squad of aging actors to revitalize Tinseltown. Jon Voight—who is actress Angelina Jolie's father—was chosen as one of his 'special ambassadors' to Hollywood, as was Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson. It was the 86-year-old Voight who appears to have persuaded Trump to impose the levy on movies made outside the U.S. In its report on Trump's viewing habits, the New York Times said TV is so important to Trump that he lives in a giant Truman Show-style drama. 'Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals,' it said.
Irish Times
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Trump's latest bluster about reopening Alcatraz offers up another shiny distraction
'I don't know if he was watching The Rock or what inspired this,' the California governor Gavin Newsom sighed when asked about US president Donald Trump 's left-field announcement that he had ordered the prison authorities to reopen Alcatraz. The forbidding island located in the bright choppy waters of San Francisco bay has become one of the city's most enduring landmarks. It stopped operating as a prison in 1963, when the authorities decided that maintaining this exotically located penitentiary was simply too costly. Now, it brings in $60 million (€53 million) annually as one of San Francisco's most popular tourist attractions. 'You can't even come up with a more colossally bad fiscal idea. Nothing about this makes any sense,' said Newsom. Many international economists would defend Trump on this one, arguing that he has, in fact, come up with several monumentally worse fiscal ideas, with tariffs leading that list. READ MORE Whether Trump happened to catch the Sean Connery prison caper Newsom referenced is unknown. But the Hollywood Reporter established that the Palm Beach local channel WLRN had, in fact, broadcast the 1979 classic Escape From Alcatraz last Sunday morning. It had aired about two hours before Trump shared his vision for a gleaming, restored symbol of American justice on Truth Social. Easy to imagine any president, while flicking through the tedious weekend news segments fixating on their cryptocurrency interests or complaining that a third term in office would be unconstitutional, stumbling on Clint Eastwood, denim clad and wind-burnt, plotting his ingenious escape from the infernal prison, and then ordering another coffee and settling in. A cell block on Alcatraz Island. Photograph: Ian Bates/The New York Times 'One person almost got there but they – as you know, they found his clothing rather badly ripped up,' Trump said during the week about Alcatraz's storied jailbreak yarns. 'A lot of shark bites. A lot of problems. Nobody's ever escaped from Alcatraz and it just represented something strong having to do with law and order. We need law and order in this country. You look at it ... you saw that picture that was put out. It's sort of amazing. But it sort of represents something that is both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak. It's got a lot of qualities that are interesting.' Nobody can prove that Trump was inspired by watching the film on WLRN. But something had triggered a vivid response to that West Coast landmark in his mind. As bleak American jails come, there is something fascinating about Alcatraz. That's one of the reasons why an estimated 1.4 million people take the lonely boat ride out there every year, to tour its dateless interior and peer through the bars into Al Capone's old cell. Economists have marvelled at the jaw-dropping impracticality of the idea and the sheer architectural and civic challenges of imposing contemporary prison standards on a crumbling early 20th-century edifice And in typically peculiar phrasing Trump managed to capture the weird essence of the place. Anyone who has ever visited Alcatraz absorbs the contradictory point: the primary beauty of the sea and sky against the crushing aura of solitude and misery of the building itself. Trump's vision for a 21st-century version of Alcatraz is connected to his administration's immigration deportation policy, as he explained during the week. 'So many of these radicalised judges, they want to have trials for every single person who came into our country illegally – that would mean millions of trials.' By trials, he meant 'hearings' or the due process that Democratic adversaries warn has been gravely undermined in the first 100 days. Last Sunday's film was broadcast on an affiliate of PBS, the publicly funded broadcaster which, along with radio's NPR, has suffered the wrath of the president who has ordered cuts to crucial federal funding. It was linked to another Trump announcement: to save Hollywood 's declining film and television production industry by imposing 100 per cent tariffs on productions outside the United States. It was a plan that caused alarm within the international film industry and in Hollywood. [ Keith Duggan: The home of American cinema is hanging by a thread Opens in new window ] Political opponents and commentators have dismissed Trump's Alcatraz dream as just that: another shiny distraction tossed into the air to catch the eye of millions and turn minds away from the real issues for a day or two. Economists have marvelled at the jaw-dropping impracticality of the idea and the sheer architectural and civic challenges of imposing contemporary prison standards on a crumbling early 20th-century edifice. Not to mention destroying what has long been established as a magnet for tourists who get to walk through a living, breathing museum piece. Against all that, Trump can argue that a new Alcatraz would be a cool monument to his new America. And he is the president. William Marshall III, newly appointed as the Bureau of Prisons' director, understood the brief when he issued his statement on the subject on Monday. 'USP Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order and justice. We will be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission.' Maybe there is no escaping Alcatraz after all.
Irish Times
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
No escaping Alcatraz as Trump offers up another shiny distraction
'I don't know if he was watching The Rock or what inspired this,' the California governor Gavin Newsom sighed when asked about US president Donald Trump 's left-field announcement that he had ordered the prison authorities to reopen Alcatraz. The forbidding island located in the bright choppy waters of San Francisco bay has become one of the city's most enduring landmarks. It stopped operating as a prison in 1963, when the authorities decided that maintaining this exotically located penitentiary was simply too costly. Now, it brings in $60 million (€53 million) annually as one of San Francisco's most popular tourist attractions. 'You can't even come up with a more colossally bad fiscal idea. Nothing about this makes any sense,' said Newsom. Many international economists would defend Trump on this one, arguing that he has, in fact, come up with several monumentally worse fiscal ideas, with tariffs leading that list. READ MORE Whether Trump happened to catch the Sean Connery prison caper Newsom referenced is unknown. But the Hollywood Reporter established that the Palm Beach local channel WLRN had, in fact, broadcast the 1979 classic Escape From Alcatraz last Sunday morning. It had aired about two hours before Trump shared his vision for a gleaming, restored symbol of American justice on Truth Social. Easy to imagine any president, while flicking through the tedious weekend news segments fixating on their cryptocurrency interests or complaining that a third term in office would be unconstitutional, stumbling on Clint Eastwood, denim clad and wind-burnt, plotting his ingenious escape from the infernal prison, and then ordering another coffee and settling in. A cell block on Alcatraz Island. Photograph: Ian Bates/The New York Times 'One person almost got there but they – as you know, they found his clothing rather badly ripped up,' Trump said during the week about Alcatraz's storied jailbreak yarns. 'A lot of shark bites. A lot of problems. Nobody's ever escaped from Alcatraz and it just represented something strong having to do with law and order. We need law and order in this country. You look at it ... you saw that picture that was put out. It's sort of amazing. But it sort of represents something that is both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak. It's got a lot of qualities that are interesting.' Nobody can prove that Trump was inspired by watching the film on WLRN. But something had triggered a vivid response to that West Coast landmark in his mind. As bleak American jails come, there is something fascinating about Alcatraz. That's one of the reasons why an estimated 1.4 million people take the lonely boat ride out there every year, to tour its dateless interior and peer through the bars into Al Capone's old cell. Economists have marvelled at the jaw-dropping impracticality of the idea and the sheer architectural and civic challenges of imposing contemporary prison standards on a crumbling early 20th-century edifice And in typically peculiar phrasing Trump managed to capture the weird essence of the place. Anyone who has ever visited Alcatraz absorbs the contradictory point: the primary beauty of the sea and sky against the crushing aura of solitude and misery of the building itself. Trump's vision for a 21st-century version of Alcatraz is connected to his administration's immigration deportation policy, as he explained during the week. 'So many of these radicalised judges, they want to have trials for every single person who came into our country illegally – that would mean millions of trials.' By trials, he meant 'hearings' or the due process that Democratic adversaries warn has been gravely undermined in the first 100 days. Last Sunday's film was broadcast on an affiliate of PBS, the publicly funded broadcaster which, along with radio's NPR, has suffered the wrath of the president who has ordered cuts to crucial federal funding. It was linked to another Trump announcement: to save Hollywood 's declining film and television production industry by imposing 100 per cent tariffs on productions outside the United States. It was a plan that caused alarm within the international film industry and in Hollywood. [ Keith Duggan: The home of American cinema is hanging by a thread Opens in new window ] Political opponents and commentators have dismissed Trump's Alcatraz dream as just that: another shiny distraction tossed into the air to catch the eye of millions and turn minds away from the real issues for a day or two. Economists have marvelled at the jaw-dropping impracticality of the idea and the sheer architectural and civic challenges of imposing contemporary prison standards on a crumbling early 20th-century edifice. Not to mention destroying what has long been established as a magnet for tourists who get to walk through a living, breathing museum piece. Against all that, Trump can argue that a new Alcatraz would be a cool monument to his new America. And he is the president. William Marshall III, newly appointed as the Bureau of Prisons' director, understood the brief when he issued his statement on the subject on Monday. 'USP Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order and justice. We will be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission.' Maybe there is no escaping Alcatraz after all.
