Break from Past Proposed for Alcatraz

Feb. 5, 2008 -- In San Francisco, the golden city that once helped make "peace and love" a national mantra, it has come to this — asking voters to scrap the infamous prison on Alcatraz Island to pave the way for an international peace center.

When San Franciscans go to the polls today, they will find, amid ballot questions about presidential nominees and school-funding formulas, Proposition C. It asks whether the city should try to acquire the fabled island from the federal government.

If the answer is yes, out would go the notorious prison that once housed Al Capone. In its place one day could rise the peace center, perhaps a statue of St. Francis and a spiritual healing space the proposition's sponsor calls a "harmonium."

Da Vid, the measure's chief backer, says the proposed peace center is a logical extension of San Francisco's progressive history. "The choice is simple," he says. "Do we want an old decaying prison to continue to be a significant landmark for the city of San Francisco or do we want to create something new that's a reflection of a new emerging paradigm of more progressive ideas and values?"

Others, however, see the idea as, well, wacky, and a reinforcement of the bayside city's reputation as a haven for iconoclasts and oddballs.

"These are weirdos who want to destroy San Francisco," says Leo Lacayo, spokesman for the San Francisco Republican Party. "Even the Democrats think this is weird."

The 22-acre Alcatraz, less than 2 miles from the mainland, had the first lighthouse on the West Coast and is replete with Civil War history.

It also played a pivotal role in the struggle by Native Americans for their civil rights when a group took over the island in 1969 and occupied it for 19 months, says Rich Weideman, spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes the island.

Alcatraz is best known, however, as the site of the desolate federal prison that opened in 1934 and once housed Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz," and others.