Enduring photographs

'Hidden Alcatraz : the fortress revealed' is edited by Steve Fritz and Deborah Roundtree, foreword by Peter Coyote, introduction by John Martini, and afterword by Thom Sempere.

The cover image - approaching Alcatraz island

Alcatraz - infamous for its legendary inmates - is much more than its grim history.
The book focuses on the current state of the island fortress, presenting a unique collection of nearly 100 images taken over a four-year period by 34 photographers, some of whom stayed overnight in the main cell-block.
The photographs highlight the eerie, almost supernatural mood of the former prison, bringing texture to its historical artifacts and architecture and evoking the extreme isolation and despair of inmates, whose only remaining traces are scratches and graffiti on the walls - beauty in decay.
The collection is both beautiful and haunting. It captures the unique mood of this small but fabled rock anchored off San Francisco.

The Golden Gate Bridge from Alcatraz

Although the maximum security U.S. penitentiary closed in 1963, the name still conjures Hollywood-fueled images of the ghostly, fog-shrouded island squatting in the wind-swept waters of San Francisco Bay and hardened convicts behind barred widows plotting an escape.
The colour and monochrome images offer a photographic autopsy of the prison's rotting remains. Most of the small island of Alcatraz was given over to the buildings which housed 260 prisoners in cramped, cage-like cells and narrow hallways. Through the chipped paint, rusting metal, and crumbling cement, the despair, loneliness, and severity of life on 'The Rock' remains woefully present.

Images everyone associates with Alcatraz - The Cell Block

The smoke stack

To complement the photographs, the book's introduction offers a brief history of the island (its initial nearly forgotten use as a 19th-century military fort and, later as a stockade). Alcatraz was discovered and named by the Spanish in 1769. The barren rocky sandstone island possessed no vegetation or fresh water. Work began in 1853 as a government instrumentality for a lighthouse and gun-battery fort in a strategic location - the bay of San Francisco for the defence of the American Pacific Coast. The citadel fort was completed in 1859, just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. In the 1860s it was the destination for military convicts. The gun batteries were removed in 1907, and the citadel razed in 1909 for the construction of the concrete cell blocks, when the island became solely a military prison, until 1933.
In 1934 it began as a Federal  maximum-security civilian penitentiary, up until 1963 when it closed, on the orders of Robert Kennedy, due to increasing operating and maintenance costs (unless you believe the premise of the Alcatraz tv series).
In 1969 native American Indian activists seized the island claiming it as Indian land under the 1868 treaty with the Sioux Nation. They were removed in 1971. National Parks took control of the historic landmark in 1972 and opened it as a tourist attraction in 1973.



The lighthouse with the Bay Bridge behind

On the island is first lighthouse on America's Pacific shores, a light that has guided ships in and out of San Francisco Bay for almost 125 years. It was the first of a series of lighthouses on the West Coast of the United States. The foundations were laid in 1852 and the light went into service on June 1, 1854. A fog bell was installed in 1856 to combat the San Franciso fogs which often obscured the light. In the 1906 earthquake, the lighthouse tower was cracked and a chimney toppled. The present new 84' concrete tower was completed in 1909, and was automated in 1963 when the prison closed. During the Indian seizure of the island, power was cut to Alcatraz including the lighthouse, and a fire destroyed the keeper's and warden's houses. The light is still operational, but not open to the public.

Alcatraz continues to fascinate, and this photographic collection beautifully captures its physical decay.

The view from the Warden's window