ALCATRAZ ISLAND, Calif. – When night fell on The Rock in San Francisco Bay visitors moved shadow-like through the former prison’s lantern-lit hospital rooms, a gloaming against dingy walls with peeling blue paint.
A hard wind whooshed and rattled a window in the hospital cell where Robert Stroud, “The Birdman of Alcatraz,” spent 11 of his 17 years when this was the dankest, hardest federal prison in the U.S.
Yet, most of the more than one million tourists who visit the famous former prison never get to experience Alcatraz Island at night or see its spooky, decrepit hospital — experiences unique to the night tour. At dusk the island prison that housed some of the nation’s most notorious criminals — including Al Capone and the recently rearrested James “Whitey” Bulger, who was on The Rock for bank robbery from 1959-1963 — is often enshrouded by fog, and the lamps on the grounds emit a ghostly glow.
The difference from the daytime tour is apparent from the start. The ferry from San Francisco motors slowly around the west side of the isle, passing decrepit buildings surrounded by Alcatraz new residents: black Brandt’s cormorants, Western gulls and the other birds that have made their home
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