On Alcatraz, trying to stay ahead of the elements

Anyone gazing upon Alcatraz from the west in coming months will see something new adorning the irresistibly notorious former prison — a 50-foot-high, 182-foot-long sheet of white plastic stretched tight.

Rest assured, it’s not the prelude to some blatant act of corporate branding. The white screen veils a large portion of the immense, three-story cell house while construction crews continue to do what their peers and predecessors have done for the past 30 years: preserve Alcatraz by, in essence, rebuilding much of it piece by piece.

Because if there’s one thing we know about history, it’s that the past is never really past. But left to itself, it will fade from sight.

“I’d call this somewhere between stabilization and rehabilitation,” said historical architect Jim Kren of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, referring to the current $6.9 million cell house project. “Things change. What we’re trying to maintain is the setting and the experience.”

The cell house effort follows similar work on the quartermaster warehouse that sealed off the entire 1921 structure near the ascent from the ferry wharf so it could be strengthened while adding such basics as fire sprinklers.

Or check out the fenced-off cliff along the parade ground: Two steep, precarious slopes have been sealed in wire mesh and shotcrete that is applied to look “natural.” This includes soil-filled pockets where vegetation can take root and add green accents to the crag beneath the former warden’s house, a masonry shell held intact by an interior steel frame.

Face-lifts of this sort aren’t confined to an island battered by the windswept salted elements as well as such episodes as the Indian occupation that began in 1969 and lasted 19 months. The otherworldly rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts, for instance, has been rebuilt twice.

Major attraction

But Alcatraz is a special case — a popular destination that derives its power from being a ruin. The architectural remnants of a military fortress remade as an army jail and then a maximum security prison now attract 1.5 million day-trippers who pay as much as $38 to visit via ferry.

At the old cell house, constructed before World War I atop the moated subterranean level of the 1857 fortress, the makeover involves the northern third of the wall facing the Golden Gate Bridge and a section facing east above the main visitors’ exit from the cell house (through the gift store, of course). The column-like pilasters facing west are being rebuilt, with new steel rods and recast concrete. On the flat walls in between, any pockmarks where chunks tumbled down in recent decades will be filled in.

The entire section behind the white plastic will get a coat of sealant paint to match the surrounding colors as nearly as possible. Repairs to the eastern section involve plugging holes and looking for obvious weak spots.

“We’ll take off the bad concrete, the bad metal, and then patch it all back,” said David Dusterhoff, project manager for the GGNRA. “Structurally, it’s pretty sound, but we need to keep it that way.”

Also in the plans: new storm windows to cover the small-paned steel originals and slow their corrosion. This is allowable under historic preservation standards because they can be taken off at any time.

“It’s a reversible act,” Kren explained. “The critical issue is to stop moisture from getting in.”

The job has been on the GGNRA’s to-do list for 20 years, since it became obvious that the thick, brooding walls were being weakened by the passage of time and the buffeting of storms. When an engineering study revealed that the interior cell blocks weren’t attached to the bedrock or surrounding structure — hello, seismic collapse — priorities shifted.

After explaining the wall work to come, Kren and Dusterhoff descended into the remains of the original citadel.

Down there, amid nooks that were used for storage and solitary confinement after the prison was built on top, you grasp the range of efforts needed to keep the haphazardly assembled icon intact. Steel straps above the corridor hold concrete flooring in place. Seismic shear walls fill in structural gaps, impossible to ignore.

But upstairs in the old shower room, one of the first visitor stops, concrete beams were added to strengthen the ceiling in such a way that they aren’t discernible unless park service staff point them out.

Seamless work

“It’s remarkable how they duplicated the beat-up patina of the (nearby) concrete” before repainting the entire room, Kren said. “When they were done, I really couldn’t tell where they had worked.”

These small issues are part of the larger balancing act at a historic site where the official “period of significance” extends from 1847 to 1973, after the Indian occupiers were removed and the island was transferred to the National Park Service.

At the corner of the prison’s recreation yard, the northeast guardhouse is a rusted skeleton corroded almost to nonexistence. Others have been rebuilt. This one could collapse in the next large storm — there’s only so much money to go around.

And sometimes, one piece of history is demolished so that another can emerge. That happened last year when a boathouse from 1918 was demolished, by choice, to expose a stretch of the dry moat that protected the entrance gate in fortress days. Visitors heading up from the ferry to the cell house cross the moat before encountering another detail revealed as a result of the removal, a pair of 1857 arches with a carved masonry sign proclaiming you’re on “Alcatraces Island.”

“Now you’re really able to read that feature, which was here before the boathouse,” Dusterhoff said. “The interpretive value offset the demolition of a historic feature.”

Pass through the arches, and above you on the left is a water tower marked by billboard-scale red graffiti from the Indian occupation. “PEACE AND FREEDOM” is one of the phrases. “HOME OF THE FREE” is another.

The slogans are a still-defiant reminder of the late 1960s, when society was in tumult and Alcatraz’s future was up for grabs — touched up with a fresh coat of paint in 2013 that traces the original, an effort overseen by one of the original occupiers and painted by two descendants of the occupation’s leader.

Before new construction workers join the crew at Alcatraz, they’re shown a 30-minute film by the prime contractor, Tutor Perini. Much of it involves basic conduct issues, but one section captures what’s different about a site like Alcatraz, or any complex landscape that illuminates how we got to be where we are today.

“Assume everything is historic,” new arrivals are told. “All elements should be considered historic and treated with respect.”