New Industries Building, Industrial prison building on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, US.
The New Industries Building is a two-story industrial structure on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, built to house manufacturing workshops and a large laundry operation. It runs in a long row of bays on each side, with windows on the walls that let daylight into the working areas.
The building went up in 1939 as part of a broad effort to modernize the facilities on Alcatraz Island. It replaced older and less functional spaces, giving the prison updated industrial capacity for the decades that followed.
On the ground floor, prisoners worked at sewing machines and other equipment, producing gloves, mattresses, and military uniforms in exchange for small wages. This kind of paid work gave daily life inside the prison a rhythm that differed from the isolation of the cells.
The building is only accessible as part of a tour of Alcatraz Island, which departs from Pier 33 in San Francisco. It is worth planning the visit well in advance, as tours fill up quickly and availability can be limited.
The upper floor once held what was described as the largest laundry operation in San Francisco at the time, handling textiles not just for the prison but also for other federal facilities in the area. Most visitors focus on the cells and the escape stories, but this building was where much of the island's daily work actually happened.
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