https://www.yahoo.com/travel/confessions-of-alcatraz-former-inmates-and-126515796702.html There’s so much mythology and pop culture surrounding Alcatraz and its lonely island prison that to meet non-actors who actually served time there or guarded those inmates could be the most surreal experience of all. But there they were within those same imposing-yet-decaying walls this week, octogenerian ex-prisoners and guards warmly chatting with each other as if they were old friends. And if you ask them whether the many movies and legends portraying Alcatraz got the facts right, they’ll have some verdicts of their own. “The movies were not always our friends,” said Jim Albright, a former Alcatraz guard who led the last prisoner off the island on March 21, 1963. “They put out some false things.” “They sure did,” agreed Robert Luke, an Alcatraz inmate during the 1950s who was standing next to Albright during a reunion in the Alcatraz mess hall organized by TripAdvisor, where the landmark was the most popular in the U.S. this year. “Movies are made to make money, not tell the truth. Especially the ones about Alcatraz.” Straight from the mouths of those who lived and served time there, here are some actual facts about life on the most notorious U.S. prison of all time: Alcatraz inmates had a cell to themselves. (Photo: Greg Keraghosian) Alcatraz was relatively posh for a prison: Unlike other federal penitentiaries, Alcatraz housed prisoners in single cells – although this was in part because some of those prisoners were the most violent of their day. Despite its notorious reputation, prisoners actually looked forward to coming here. “Before I came here, the word was out on what Alcatraz was like,” said Luke, an armed-robbery convict who arrived after trying to escape from Leavenworth federal prison in 1954. “What I knew was, you had your own cell, the food was good, you had yard privileges on the weekend, a big library and I’m a big reader, and you had to work once a week. So what else do you want if you have to do time?” Said Albright of the privileges of single-cell incarceration: “A lot of inmates didn’t want to leave here. “They were in tears when they closed.”
