“The United States National Park Service, which operates ‘The Rock’, is planning to convert part of the prison into a hotel so that visitors can enjoy a fuller experience of the island.

Overnight guests would not, however, sleep in the cell blocks that once housed notorious criminals such as Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly or “Birdman of Alcatraz” Robert Stroud.

Instead the hotel would probably be housed in another part of the infamous penitentiary, Building 64, which housed the guards and boasts impressive views across the San Francisco bay.

Alcatraz Island is one of San Francisco’s most popular draws, attracting more than 1.4 million tourists a year to its cellblock tours. But the National Park Service is keen to let visitors explore the rest of the 12-acre island, with its unusual scenery and wildlife, as well as areas currently closed to the public, such as the prison cinema.

“People are constantly saying they want to see more of the island,” said Rich Weideman, a National Park Service spokesman. “A hotel would be the ultimate experience in visitor access.”

Alcatraz, which became a military prison in 1861 at the start of the Civil War, was a federal prison from 1933 until 1963. Officials claimed escape was impossible because of the strong tides and cold temperatures of the surrounding waters – and there were no successful breakouts.

Alcatraz has featured in several films including 1979′s Escape From Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood and The Rock, with Sean Connery, which was released in 1996.”

Source: Daily Telegraph

Today, the island is a historic site operated by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is open to tours. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

As a follow-up to our previous post about the Potato Museum I thought I’d search for more unusual real, and sometimes virtual, museums that can be found around the world:

1. Pencil Museum, Keswick, Cumbria, UK

Enter the museum through a replica of the Seathwaite mine where graphite was first discovered 350 years ago. Through words, pictures and carefully restored machinery you can trace the history of pencil making and see how Derwent Fine Art Pencils are made today. The video theatre shows a presentation detailing the history of pencil making in Keswick, including the current production methods. Be amazed at the Worlds Longest Coloured Pencil, and see a World War 2 Pencil designed like a James Bond Gadget.

2. Spy Museum, Washington DC, USA

If you have a love of spy “who-done-its” from film noir and the movies, a fascination with history and a desire to learn secrets behind world events, an urgency to understand the complexities of our world today then he international Spy Museum may be just your ticket.

Learn about the authentic tradecraft that has been used throughout time and around the world. Hear spies, in their own words, describe the challenges and the “game” of spying.

A spy must live a life of lies. Adopt a cover identity and learn why an operative needs one. See the credentials an agent must have to get in—or out, as in the case of six Americans exfiltrated from revolutionary Iran in 1979, courtesy of the Canadian Ambassador— and the CIA. Proceed directly to the Briefing Film where you’ll come face to face with the real world of spying. Spies are motivated for very different reasons–what might motivate you? Patriotism? Money? A compromising situation? Your own ego?

3. Balloon Museum, Alburquerque, NM, USA

In 1978, Albuquerque balloonists Ben Abruzzo and Maxie Anderson, along with partner Larry Newman, made history when they completed the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by gas balloon.

Now, a museum named in their honor is making history here in Albuquerque. The $12 million Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum building dominates the skyline just southeast of Balloon Fiesta Park.

The Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum is the world’s premiere facility dedicated to the art, culture, science, history, sport and spectacle of ballooning. It features one of the finest collections of ballooning equipment and memorabilia in the world. It officially opened its doors to the public on October 1st, 2005.

The dream of building a museum to celebrate the art and science of ballooning began in the mid 1980s. The Maxie Anderson family felt that creating a museum would be a fitting way to honor the senior Anderson, who died in a balloon accident in Europe in 1983. After Ben Abruzzo’s 1985 death in an airplane accident, it was decided the museum should honor Abruzzo as well.

The Anderson and Abruzzo families spearheaded efforts to advance the museum project throughout the 1990’s. The City of Albuquerque embraced the project and financed the construction of the facility through the Quality of Life Tax and bond funds.

4. Toilet Seat Museum, Alamo Heights, TX, USA

Barney Smith has been creating these works of art for 30 years and now has over 700 differently decorated Toilet Seats

Here is an eye-witness account of this, ahem, seat of learning: “I visited Barney Smith, famed Texas toilet seat artist, in early January 2002. His museum collection now encompasses 612 seats and he shows no signs of slowing down, even though he is rapidly closing in on 81 years of age.

I spent roughly two hours with Barney. He is a very articulate speaker who loves his work. Why does he paint and engrave toilet seats? Barney says, “I was a master plumber before I retired so I was comfortable with the medium.”

Barney started to modify toilet seats about 30 years ago. It all started when he needed a place to mount a set of small deer antlers. Apparently the toilet seat lid was just about the right shape, and he stuck the antlers on the lid. And so it began.

Mr. Smith gets his inspiration for his seats from all over the world. Many of the seats have personal meaning to him, and some depict his travels around the world and his wedding anniversaries.

When I asked which was his favorite seat, he couldn’t come up with one. He likes them all, some have more meaning to him than others, but they are all special. “That is why,” he says, “none are for sale. They all mean too much to me.”

Read the full report here.

5. Chip Museum, Bruges, Belgium

The Frietmuseum in Bruges is made up of 3 parts: the first section explains the history of the potato, next comes the history of the fries and at the end the possibility to sample them.

As far as the potato is concerned, its history goes back to around 10,000 years ago, that is 8,000 years before Jesus Christ, since wild potatoes have been found in several tombs in Peru and Chile. This tends to prove that already at that time the wild potato was used and probably consumed by the inhabitants of that part of the world.

The museum explains how the wild potato became a cultivated plant and how the plant then travelled from Peru to Europe and, to be more precise, to Belgium.

The second part traces the history of the fries and their Belgian origin and gives advice on how to make the best fries.

In the third part of the museum, in the basement cellars, it is possible to sample fries and a certain number of typical Belgian meat dishes such as meat balls and beef stew.

The whole museum contains around 400 ancient objects. The oldest, dating from the pre-Columbian period, are Inca vases representing different sorts of potato.

Read a review in The Guardian newspaper.

6. Barbed Wire Museum, LaCrosse, Kansas, USA

First there was nothing but a vast open range. Native bison roamed free. Then came the settlers, and with them, a need to define their territory. Soon, miles of fences were built. Territorial disputes ensued, rights came into question, and the character of the land began to change. When the dust settled, people were once again able to live relatively in peace. The days of the open range were gone.

Some say it was the six-gun that settled the west. Others know better. It was an unusual invention that in a few short years grew into a multi-million dollar industry: Barbed Wire.

The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum in LaCrosse, Kansas is devoted solely to the history and legend of this part of American history often referred to as the “Devils Rope”. On exhibit are over 2000 barbed wire varieties; including samples manufactured between the years 1870 and 1890.

The museum presents interesting ways to learn about one of the midwest’s most important contributions to America’s history. Dioramas of early barbed wire use, a theatre featuring educational films, the Barbed Wire Hall of Fame, the museum archives room, and a research library all help to conjure up images of settling the midwest, range wars between homesteaders and cattlemen, and the transformation of the open prairie into America’s bread basket.

7. Tax History Museum (Virtual, Internet Based)

The Tax History Museum provides a synthetic overview of the history of American taxation. Incorporating both narrative text and multimedia source materials, the museum offers a concise summary of American revenue policy and politics.

8. Museum of Bad Art, Dedham, Mass, USA

The Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA) is a community-based, private institution dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.

MOBA was founded in the fall of 1993 and presented its first show in March 1994. The response was overwhelming.

Since then, MOBA’s collection and ambitions have grown exponentially.

Initially, MOBA was housed in the basement of a private home in Boston. This meagre exhibition space limited the museum to being a regional cultural resource for the New England area.

9. The Lawnmower Museum, Southport, Lancs, UK

Enter the fascinating world of this internationally famous Museum and have a unique experience, it marks the culmination of a dream by Ex-Racing champion Brian Radam. His interest in this type of equipment stems from early involvement in the family business started in 1945. The Museum has now become one of the Worlds leading authorities on vintage lawnmowers and is now the largest import & export specialists in antique garden machinery, supplying parts, archive conservation of manuscript materials and valuing machines from all over the world. The Museum retains a character not often seen in these modern times.

The lawnmower was invented by Edwin Beard Budding in 1830. He was working in a cotton mill in Stroud, Gloucester, where he designed a machine to cut the knap off cloth. His revolutionary idea was to use it to cut grass!!. At the time people thought he was a lunatic to use such a contraption, so he tested the machine at night so no one could see him.

Included in this Unique National collection are manufacturers not normally associated with the garden industry, names such as Rolls Royce, Royal Enfield, Daimler, Hawker Sidley, Perkins Diesel, British Leyland, Fraser Nash and many more. Most of the exhibit’s technical and industrial artifacts are from the Victorian and Edwardian era and the restored exhibits are devoted to keeping a small part of British engineering Heritage alive.

10. The Banana Museum, Virtual, Internet Based

The Washington Banana Museum curator is Ann Mitchell Lovell. Ann has assembled close to 4,000 items, a melange of artifacts, folk art and other cultural oddities devoted to the world’s perfect fruit. Assembled by a longtime scholar of banana consciousness, it features a compendium of whimsical and serious representations of the $1-selling fruit in the United States.

It was not until a trip to Hawaii in 1980, that Ann began this quest to assemble the greatest collection of banana artifacts. “A friend and I found a bar there called Anna’s Bannanas, and I bought a T-shirt with its logo.” Over time, she found other items that made their way into her home. “I started finding banana things and saving them. Friends began noticing and would also seek out banana stuff. Though I never really intended to collect bananas, the collection just came in a bunch!”

11. The Phallus Museum, Husavik, Iceland

The Icelandic Phallological Museum is probably the only museum in the world to contain a collection of phallic specimens belonging to all the various types of mammal found in a single country.

Phallology is an ancient science which, until recent years, has received very little attention in Iceland, except as a borderline field of study in other academic disciplines such as history, art, psychology, literature and other artistic fields like music and ballet. .

Now, thanks to The Icelandic Phallological Museum, it is finally possible for individuals to undertake serious study into the field of phallology in an organized, scientific fashion.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum contains a collection of two hundred penises and penile parts belonging to almost all the land and sea mammals that can be found in Iceland. Visitors to the museum will encounter fifty two specimens belonging to sixteen different kinds of whale, one specimen taken from a rogue polar bear, thirty-one specimens belonging to seven different kinds of seal and walrus, and one hundred and fourteen specimens originating from twenty different kinds of land mammal: all in all, a total of two hundred specimens belonging to forty five different kinds of mammal. It should be noted that the museum has also been fortunate enough to receive legally-certified gift tokens for four specimens belonging to Homo Sapiens. Besides there are some twenty folklore specimens and forty foreign ones

12. The Alchemy Museum, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

The World’s First Museum dedicated to Alchemy in all its aspects is a fascinating and exciting new attraction on the main square of beautiful, historic Kutná Hora

ORA et LABORA – Pray and Work – is the Alchemist’s creed. Our museum leads you from the basement depths of the LABORATORY, home of the work with fire, minerals and solvents, to the exaltation of the Gothic Chapel or ORATORY, where perhaps an Alchemist Prince and Poet prayed for spiritual and practical success in the Opus Magnum, the Great Work of Alchemy.

On your journey you will explore fact, fiction and fantasy in the World of Alchemy, discover unusual objects, cryptic texts and startling visual images, possible clues in the search for the Philosopher’s Stone.

Defining Alchemy in a global context, the special emphasis of the display is the rich history of Alchemy in the Czech Lands and its relationship with the Mining and Metallurgy Traditions of Kutná Hora..

13. Historical Torture Museum, Virtual, Internet Based

The collection is owned by Italian independent scholars who have made these instruments available for traveling exhibits on the subject of TORTURE. This collection shown for the first time in the U.S., in the city of San Francisco co-sponsored by Fort Mason Foundation.

Shown in many historical and prestigious venues all over Europe, in Tokyo, in Argentina and Mexico, the exhibit has always raised the interest of millions of visitors and the press, not only for its great visual impact, but also for its clear message against the violation of human rights.

Such violations have given rise to a great amount of resistance throughout the centuries and in the most diverse cultural contexts, and unfortunately continue to be very topical today.

Our commitment, which we share with all who are interested in combating violence, torture, and capital punishment against living beings, is to show how throughout the centuries human beings have been tortured, both in body and soul, in the name of the truth, its only justification often being submission to the authorities.

All over the world, in the past and in the present, torture has been practiced both against the body and the mind of the victim.

It is devastating and inhuman, in its effect. It certainly cannot be called a punishment , but is merely an exercise in brutality and savagery, akin to the crime often only allegedly committed by the offender.

Today society should have the power to produce a new code of justice based on recognizing human dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of every individual.

Let those who are reading this view for themselves the “instruments’ shown in this exhibit ; observe in silence, interpret with freedom of thought, conscience, religion, etc, and express their conclusions exercising their freedom of speech.

We organize traveling and permanent exhibitions everywhere around the world, with authentic torture instruments taken from the Medieval Criminal Museum collection, in San Gimignano, Italy.

14. Carpet Museum, Tehran, Iran

In 1978, the founders of the Carpet Museum of Iran established this Museum with a limited number of Persian carpets and kilims, in order to revive and develop the art of carpet-weaving in the country, and to provide a source to satisfy the need for research about the historical background and evolution of this art
The Carpet Museum of Iran, with its beautiful architecture and facade resembling a carpet-weaving loom is located on the northwest of Laleh Park in Tehran. It is composed of two exhibition galleries covering an area of 3400 m2.The ground floor gallery is assigned for permanent exhibitions and the upper floor gallery is considered for the temporary exhibitions of carpets, kilims, and carpet designs.

15. Sanitary and Plumbing Museum, Worcester, MA, USA

This museum shows the history of plumbing, with some emphasis on toilets. Of even greater interest is the vast collection of antique plumbing tools and parts.

The Universal Studios in Los Angeles had to shut after a serious fire took hold on Sunday. The “King Kong” tour and the sets for such blockbuster movies as “Back to the Future” and “Bruce Almighty” were destroyed as a result.

Some 500 firefighters, assisted by water-bearing helicopters, spent most of the day fighting the blaze despite problems with low water pressure and an overwhelmed sprinkler system.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and county Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman ordered an inquiry into whether the lack of water pressure in Universal’s fire protection system allowed the blaze to get out of control at the world-famous studio and theme park.

It also damaged a video library but the studios said they had duplicates of everything lost.

A propane fuel tank explosion may have caused the fire, but investigations into the cause of the blaze are continuing.

Sources: BBC News and Los Angeles Times

Kew Gardens officiallly opens their new Xstrata Treetop Walkway today.

As part of Kew’s summer festival, which is scheduled to run until 28 September 2008, the walkway will take “visitors on a thrilling, innovative and educational journey around the Gardens, from deep underground to the unseen, green world of the tree top canopy”. In short visitors will be given “the opportunity to journey from the fascinating root system, learning about a tree’s life underground, to the top of the tree canopy to explore biodiversity from above” (source: Kew Gardens press release).

The press release continues “The pioneering structure of the Xstrata Treetop Walkway is an ingenious design based on a Fibonacci numerical sequence, often found in nature’s growth patterns. Designed by Marks Barfield Architects, the architects of the London Eye, it has a low environmental impact in keeping with the overall underlying environmental message behind the festival.”

“Supported by the Hanson Environment Fund, Kew’s Rhizotron (taken from the Greek rhiza, meaning root) will give visitors a unique opportunity to delve into the underground world of trees. The Rhizotron, entered through an apparent crack in the ground, will show visitors the lively natural world beneath the trees, explaining the vital relationships between the trees roots and the micro-organisms in the soil. Then, rising 18 metres into the air, the Xstrata Treetop Walkway will allow visitors to wander through the canopy of sweet chestnuts, limes and deciduous oaks to discover birds, insects, lichens and fungi that rely on these huge organisms. This 200 meter long walkway will not only be a thrilling, tranquil and intimate experience, but will also offer a unique birds-eye view of the vast 300 acres of Kew, as well as the London skyline”.

Tony Kirkham, head of RBG Kew’s arboretum [...] said, “As a trained arborist I have had the privilege of being up in the tree canopy; experiencing trees at height and birds and other wildlife from a completely different perspective. It’s fantastic that we are able to give visitors the same experience and we hope it will make them realise that trees do matter and we need to nurture them.”

For further information visit the Kew Gardens website or have a look at the BBC News report of the walkway.

Yes, there really is a potato museum…in Idaho, USA.

Here’s an extract from their website:

“Located in the old Oregon Short Line Railroad Depot you’ll discover the world of Idaho’s Famous Potatoes. The Idaho Potato Museum is a unique museum which appropriately showcases Idaho’s Famous Potatoes. <…> You’ll be intrigued as you stroll through the Museum which was built in 1912. Once a bustling flurry of activity, the stone depot represents significant ties between the railroad and the potato industry. The Potato Museum provides information on potato history, the growing and harvesting process, nutrition, trivia and educational potato facts.”

Not my cup of tea personally, but perhaps the railroad aspect might be interesting but I digress. By the way if you can’t make it to Idaho you could always take a virtual tour on the online potato museum! See www.potatomuseum.com which describes itself as “the world’s first museum about the potato and features the planet’s largest collection about this valuable vegetable” and currently features a piece from the Johny Carson show about a potato chip collector!

But I’m digressing again, if you really are an avid fan of potatoes try a Google or Yahoo search for “Potato Museum” – but I’ll let you trawl the 500,000+ results!