Thursday, January 24, 2008

Towering Over Alcatraz

This rusted water tower was once used to store water for drinking and fighting fires.


There used to be 6 guard towers on the island. This is the only one that is still standing.


Alcatraz had the first activated lighthouse in the West Coast in 1854. It was damaged in the 1906 earthquake and eventually torned down. When the 600 cell prison was built in 1909, they built a new 84-foot concrete lighthouse which you see here.


- AV

10 comments:

Cepunkt said...

Interesting!

Oswegan said...

looks like a cool place to tour.

dot said...

I'm not just saying this to be nice. I really love the type of pictures you take. I snapped two towers this week but they can't compare with these.

AVCr8teur said...

Chris, thank you for visiting and commenting.

Oswegan, since you make it out to the Bay Area regularly, I thought you would have been to Alcatraz already.

Dot, you are too kind. If you'd like, you can email your tower photos and see if we can come up with some suggestions.

roentare said...

The light tower looks pretty rusty and run down but very photogenic!

AVCr8teur said...

Thanks Roentarre. I guess it is rusty because the island is usually covered by fog and blasted with the salty air.

Travel 50+ said...

Alcatraz!I will be there and take the nice photo like this.

AVCr8teur said...

Hello cdaoruang, I hope you'll have fun on your tour. Take plenty of pictures. I would love to see them.

Anonymous said...

Let's hope that rusty water tower will stand for many years, because from many angles that water tower is almost like WTC was for Manhattan skyline.

AVCr8teur said...

Juha, I agree with you. I maintains the character of Alcatraz. I know what you mean, without the WTC, NYC just doesn't look the same.