Slouching Towards Bethlehem

This essay is a brief sketch of what Alcatraz is like in 1967, four years after its closure as a prison. At the time, there are three people living on Alcatraz Island: John and Marie Hart, who have lived on the island for sixteen years since John was a prison guard, and Bill Doherty, a retired seaman. The two men are hired to keep watch over the grounds. They live an isolated life on the island, largely cut off from San Francisco; a traffic helicopter drops off a newspaper every day, and their only visitors are people brought by Thomas Scott, a General Services Administration official who is trying to sell the land.

Thomas Scott brings Didion to the island, and she tours the abandoned facilities, which were too expensive to keep in use and have no budget for repairs. Didion tries to imagine the inhumane prison conditions, but she likes being at Alcatraz and likes the idea of an abandoned place without human vanity where a few people live a small, quiet life.

This is another brief sketch focused on place, this time of the mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, that were built by some of the most powerful industrialists of American History.