Paradise Regained

Related Content

• Wake Up and Reflect
  November 23, 2011
• "J. Edgar": Rich Script, Masterful Acting Weave Dense Historical Tale
  November 9, 2011
• Span of Knowledge
  May 2, 2012
• Three San Francisco Kids to Swim from Alcatraz
  November 15, 2011
• Alcatraz in Black and White
  May 4, 2011

More About

• Alcatraz
• Nicolas Cage
• Fred Reichel
• Clint Eastwood
• Al Capone

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

To our recurring surprise, many locals never get the idea to visit Alcatraz, because traveling by boat to an island to walk around cellblocks is just something they don't like do. How come? Because tourists get that idea, every day, by the shorts-wearing boatloads. Here's your solution: The Gardens of Alcatraz Tours, in which you walk around garden landscapes originally developed and maintained by prisoners, guards, guards' families, and whoever else had the forbearance to grow in the brutal climate, like Mother Nature herself. Turns out that a riot of green-thumb niceties occurred during the island's 100-year military and prison period, including a satisfying amount of rose tutoring by the warden's secretary Fred Reichel. This was followed by decades of neglect, and the plants went bad, but rehabilitation efforts, begun in 2003 and led by historic photos, have restored the island to its flowering innocence and landed awards from the California Preservation Foundation. We figure the twice-a-week docent-led tours are light on tourists, because how many visiting Dads are choosing vegetation over sitting in the yard and imagining they're Al Capone, Clint Eastwood, or (if Dad sucks) Nic Cage? Not many -- or, more precisely, not ours.
Fridays, Saturdays, 9:30 a.m., 2011