10 - Family Housing

WAYSIDE LAYOUT: Cream colored, vertically oriented panel with a dark banner running across the top. The banner reads “Golden Gate National Recreation Area” on the left and the National Park Service logo on the right. The panel has two columns. The first column has text, then two pictures side by side and a quote. The second column has a picture, a quote and then another picture.  

FIRST COLUMN:  

TEXT: Family Housing: First stop for new families. Like any small town, Alcatraz had its more-and less-desirable neighborhoods. Throughout the penitentiary era, new guards and their families lived in this building, and most couldn’t wait to get out and move into newer staff quarters.  

Much of this building was a dark maze of apartments converted from military barracks build in 1905 and 1906. However, some families had spacious units with wonderful bay views, and chose to stay here for years.  

DESCRIPTION #1: Photograph of 2 children in front of a chain linked fence. The child on the left, wearing a white shirt and blue pants, is doing a handstand, using the fence for balance. The other child, is standing to the right, leaning on the fence, watching the handstand.  

DESCRIPTION #2: 3 girls posing for a photograph on the steps of a building. Two girls are on one step and the third is behind them in the middle, forming a triangle. Their arms are positioned behind them and they are bent over, as if skiing or flying.  

CAPTION: Wives and children were restricted to the fenced residential area on this end of the island whenever inmates were out of their cells.  

QUOTE: “We moved up to what they called the ‘Cow Palace’, an eleven-room apartment on the third floor of the building, That was a biggie.” Dick Waznak , Alcatraz correctional officer, Eyewitness on Alcatraz 

SECOND COLUMN:  

DESCRIPTION: Black and white image of a brick building with a single window and steps up to a doorway.  

QUOTE: “They had an old torn-up apartment right there at the corner...It was a real rat-hole. My wife cried when I showed it to her the first time. Then a fellow resigned and we had a real nice apartment...You got your apartment furnished with the utilities paid for $25 a month. There’s no way you could be that. Not in San Francisco.” - Bob Funton Alcatraz correctional officer, Eyewitness on Alcatraz 

DESCRIPTION: Black and white image of 3 adults, 2 women and 1 man, in front of the stairway up to the previously described apartment building.