He pointed out that a maintenance estimate for the year prior to the prison’s closure was $5 million, or around $52 million in today’s dollars.
Trump has not provided an explanation for why the prison would not incur the same high operating costs as it did in the 1960s, on top of the millions of dollars in repair expenses.
“It would be intimidating and extremely costly,” the historian added.Running water, sanitary facilities, heating, and electricity are all gone; the island has some electricity, but not enough to function.
“It would make as much sense to retake Alcatraz and use the existing structure to make it an operational prison as it would to reassemble Fort Sumter and equip it with missile loading cannons.”
In the meantime, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and former speaker of the House, stated that the concept of reopening Alcatraz is “not a serious one.”
