Alcatraz Island Cruise | Alcatraz Prison Tour | San Francisco

Hey there everyone, my name is Eduardo Arroyo, but you can call me Ed, and today, I am here at Alcatraz. So I've lived in San Francisco for about 7 months now. I lived 3 months here last year, last summer, and I've lived here 4 months so far, and I've always prided myself of having visited all the major attractions here in San Francisco, but I have one that I have yet to visit. Alcatraz! I don't know if you can see the boat. The reason that I haven't been to Alcatraz is basically because there's a lot of people coming here during the summer, so there's barely any times available for you to go. So if you want to go, you have to come at a specific time of the year where you can find a time slot for it. Right now, I work here, so it's good, and we were able to find a few spots for a couple friends that are coming with us. Look at that. Look at my hair. Just waving in the wind. So the first thing that comes to my mind is that we're like the Pirates of the Caribbean or something. Like in my mind, all I hear is like, dit dit, dit dit something like that, and we're going to Treasure Island over there. Getting cold, Mike? Getting cold! It's cold, guys. It's cold as heck. The ship is about to dock completely That's funny cuz that's my friend over there. You see this guy with a camera He's like kneeling or whatever. That's that's my friend Do you guys see that a few moments later, so that's on purpose But I thought this was gonna get like destroyed Look at my hair guys John John, we're here at Alcatraz Island Let's go find a nice building 13-story building we walk up the stairs. That's the first thing I thought The park ranger or whatever he is he finished giving us the information that we need for the tour today He told us basically that we can go ahead and explore by ourselves But then there's also like an hour audio kind of tour which we have to go inside get Headphones and then we can go ahead and do that and he said that that was the highlight of the trip We'll see about that. But right now we're just waiting for our other two friends who will be coming here in half an hour So we're just waiting for them and then we'll go ahead and do all the other things that we can here at the rock So My friends just got here we're about to head around the island I think we're gonna do the audio tour later But right now we just want to go ahead and explore and see what we can find on our own before going To the audio tour now, we're all together He's from France And me from Mexico China We are exploring this place And the first thing the first thing we find is a cannon And you can touch it to Touch it As you can see it's like pointing right at the opening so that if anyone tries to come Through this door they get blown away So right here is a social the officers club Which was used as a social club like for parties and other events for the guards and their families Could you imagine that though? Like your family living at like a penitentiary like a prison like maximum security and you're just here with your family Sometimes like in the weekend, you're having like a party you're chilling out. You're bowling you're exercising and everything. Imagine that So this place was like kind of like a club you would say They're like all the officers like Another thing that I can tell you guys is that Alcatraz Before it became a prison. It was first property of the United States Army This is where they jailed any prisoners of war any people that deserted the army or anything like that This is where they kept them later on the US government Department of Justice decided to take over to turn this into a prison of maximum security and this was over 80 years ago and They lasted for a lot of time until 1960 something I believe 1934 to 1960 something those were the years that this prison was active And Manuela is a professional photographer using his phone He's concentrated. Look at his face What is this supposed to be? So this is also where they would come and work Let's check it out One thing that I'm learning from reading these posters is that a lot of the different escape attempts Originated here in the laundry room and the workshops just because I feel like there they have the guards had more Confidence they trusted the employees in order to work at one of these places You had to be well-behaved inmates who try to escape took advantage of that So this is some of the routine that the inmates had to go through as you can see, it's very structured imagine being in that kind of Structured environment like you your life doesn't belong to you anymore Like these people who did whatever they wanted outside of of jail And then they come here and they have to follow that strict routine in this really like bad depressing environment I think it would turn people even worse by coming here We just got here to the very top this is the main prison this is where we're gonna have the audio program given to us and We're gonna learn a lot about all the trust What that said is that if you break the rules you go to prison if you break the jail rules you go to Alcatraz More often than not Alcatraz is seen as like the prison that house like the worst of the worst Criminals, but that really isn't the case. They did have a lot of really bad people here But the thing that Alcatraz was made for is to house the prisoners that couldn't follow the rules in all the other prison So this is like the troublemakers and all that they were broken down until they were forced to follow So we are here we're ready with our beats beats audio I'm just kidding the regular headphones, but we're about to start they gave us this little device You just click the green button and then the tour starts, so I can't be too loud But what I'm learning right now Is that a lot of the corridors were named after like famous streets and roads here in the US The one that I'm currently on it's called Broadway This one is where like the most recent inmates would come through so they would like get hustled by all the other inmates They were kind of like welcoming to their new home, which will be Alcatraz something that I just learned is that Prisoners chose what they how they wanted to live at least that's the perspective From all the guards and all the security personnel here if you behave well you were Given some benefits if not, then you were punished one of the benefits that they gave prisoners of Alcatraz is the recreation area where I'm at right now and What you could do here is do exercise play games and just be outside and be able to breathe the fresh air and hang Out for a bit all the other prisoners that behaved bad. They would not get this opportunity They would instead be put in isolation Like I said before this was considered a privilege that you were supposed to earn by behaving well and Not getting into more trouble than you already were on This would be I think like a highlight of their day or their week Maybe they were hoping to get some time out So they look forward to to the time that they could spend time here at the recreation yard But considering the amount of people that live here Maybe they didn't have enough space. So it's something that makes you think and wonder how those people live that period of time Be time for me to go inside and check out the rest of the tour. So right now I'm at block D So the cells were divided into different spaces different blocks block a to block D Those were the names given to each of the different cell blocks Right now we are in block D This block how they explained it was a cell or like a jail within the jail So this is where all the worst criminals would end up at so if you misbehave you would come here This was some sort of solitary confinement and you would only get to go out one day in the week I think or a day to shower So that was your only time that you could get out of the jail The only things available at the cells in D block for prisoners Was a bed where they could sleep a sink where they could wash their hands and a toilet where they could go about their business Again, there was no privacy. It was just to make it Clear that there were no longer in charge of their own lives. What I'm going to do right now is go ahead and move to the end So those last few cells They were called the hole so here like I told you in block D is it was made for the worst people, right? well the last Cells, so the hole was made for those people who were the worst in D block so you could imagine who was there We can go ahead and go to one of these these marked with green Are part of what they call or they used to call the hole We can go inside of one right now. So look at this So there was no access to sunlight Nothing like that So you can imagine that you're here all by yourself and the only thing that you have is your thoughts Like I mentioned before at the yard That was one of the biggest privileges given to inmates here another privilege that was given to people who were behaving well was that they had access to a library with a lot of books and they could also get a subscription to different magazines and That were allowed by the guards and by the security here at the prison So nothing related to criminal activity or any sexual material was allowed When Alcatraz started to function as a Person of maximum security it was sold on the idea that the inmates would not be able to escape ever This however did not deter the inmates from trying to escape multiple times in total there were 14 different escape attempts done by 36 people people would sometimes do it together Some would do it alone one of the most infamous attempts to escape from this prison was the one dubbed the battle of Alcatraz the battle of Alcatraz was basically a day when a bunch of inmates decided to escape they got together They organized in order to steal the keys from one of the guards and try to escape that way They managed to accomplish that goal of getting the keys they got some hostages some of the security guards and they managed to escape all the way to the Recreation area that we visited earlier. However, the guard that gave them the keys managed to pocket one of the keys that opened the Recreation areas door So all the inmates that were trying to escape got to that point and then they realized that the key didn't open the door They got so upset that they started to shoot people They killed some of the hostages that they had and it was a standoff for a few days They even had to get the Marines to come help them Take care of this whole mess. That must have been the biggest troll in history like imagine you're the leader of like the thugs that are trying to escape and then you get to that point and you're like, ah Snap like he did me wrong. And then the the guard who who didn't give him the key. He was like got him Ladies and gentlemen, we got him As crazy and organized as that escape attempt sounds that was actually not the Craziest nor the most organized case that they had to deal here in Alcatraz the most infamous Escape attempt that they had to deal with was actually the one called escape Alcatraz, which we'll go over in a little bit So these cells right here This is what I wanted to see since the beginning So how exactly did escape Alcatraz come to be and how did it go? Well, let me tell you that most of the previous attempts were basically inmates using brute force or taking advantage of a specific situation like we said before like Working at the shop or at the laundry room and just taking a chance Whenever you saw a window open you would take that and you would try to escape most of them failed Like I said before but majority of the previous Escape attempts happened that way this escape attempt though was different it was different because the people who try to escape had a plan and a very very Complex one a plan that took him a lot of time to complete what they did is they basically grabbed Spoons and metals from the shops and they started carving a hole in the wall. Not only that but they also improvised a Mechanical tool such as a drill that they made using a motor from a vacuum cleaner that they found So these people were smart and they knew how to cover their tracks, too In order to make sure that any of the officers were onto them. They decided to create dummy versions of themselves They used papier-mâché in order to create like a mold of their head and they also used hair from the barber shop in Order to put it there so that it could look more like a real human being and I'll go ahead and show you that So that is that one right there and if you look over there at the very back you can see the hole or the Recreation of the hole that they carved with the spoon and the electric drill that they created that hole led to an urban Which itself led to a corridor that they use in order to escape to the to the rooftop and then Try to escape that way. Another thing that I forgot to mention Is that they also created a raft made out of different old raincoats. So they were a creative bunch They like I said before they created the electric drill then they created the raft which would make it easier for them to navigate the ocean and get to shore faster and Safer than it would be swimming their efforts actually paid off as they were able to escape they were not Captured by any of the officers and as of today, we don't know the conclusion of this story We don't know if they managed to escape and survive to shore or if they died in their attempt The FBI ran an investigation in order to determine what happened But in the end they had to close it because they couldn't find any evidence that they survived But they didn't either find evidence that they died people from both sides come with evidence saying that they found the raft others said that But like the family members of those people who actually escaped received letters from them that proves that they're still alive or something like that But in the end, there's no hundred percent Proof that they were successful or that they weren't which kind of makes it even better for me because you still really don't know What these people did turn them into legends, I mean we're still talking about them till this day I'm really enjoying this trip so far right now I'm just trying to find my friends and See if we can explore the outside a little bit more but coming inside was very very interesting So I strongly recommend that if you come here to San Francisco, you go ahead and come to Alcatraz Alright guys from here. I say goodbye. Thank you so much for for coming along with me And if you enjoyed the video make sure to LIKE subscribe And share with a friend that you might think might like it always remember to be kind have an open mind We'll see you next time