I've lived in the Bay Area for more than 22 years, and have crossed the Bay Bridge many times. But it was only last month that I finally set foot on Treasure Island.
Treasure Island is an artificial island, dredged up out of San Francisco Bay in the late 1930s. It's connected by a narrow isthmus of land to Yerba Buena Island, which is also the eastern anchorage of the San Francisco Bay Bridge.
The island was created as an airport for the now-defunct Pan American Airlines' ``flying boat'' services to the Pacific. They couldn't have chosen a worse site in the entire Bay Area for an airport, given that the famous Bay Area fog rushes into the bay through the Golden Gate and quickly shrouds the island.
It was the site of the 1939-1940 World's Fair, the Golden Gate Exposition, which followed the 1937 opening of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Some of the buildings on the island date from that era, and its the ``Streamline Moderne'' architecture. After World War II broke out, the island became a military base, site of the U.S. Navy's electronics school, where my father taught. That's the whole reason my brother and I are California natives, so-called ``war babies'' who just happened to be born here because this is where our father was stationed during the war. Base housing was in short supply, so my mother instead lived in a rented room in a house on Rolph Street out in San Francisco's Excelsior neighborhood.
I've always wanted to visit Treasure Island, but was always put off by what I viewed as the dangerous freeway entrances and exits. And, I must say, my only trip to the island didn't do much to get rid of those fears. I really hope they are redesigned once the new bridge is built.
The occasion for my visit was a guerilla drive-in movie from the group known a MobMov, which shows movies on the side of a building on the island, and broadcasts the sound track on a transmitter that can be picked up by the car's FM radio. When I went to Treasure Island with my friends Meg and Thalia, we didn't know--or particularly care--which movie would be shown. We were just in the mood for an adventure.
On our first pass, we completely missed the exit and had to drive all the way into San Francisco, turn around and head back over the bridge. Finally we found the exit--one exits on the left, which is distinctly counterintuitive on a freeway--and made it to the island.
Treasure Island was decomissioned as a navy base in the mid-1990s and, although still under Navy control, is now part of the city and county of San Francisco. All sorts of ambitious plans for the island have been developed, but so far, any real development looks to be miles and years away, particularly in light of the present economic slowdown.
One of the best things Treasure Island has going for it is the million-dollar San Francisco view. It's just staggeringly beautiful. I often sit in my office down on one of the piers in the city and look across the bay to the island. I guess it had never occurred to me what a magnificent view people on the island would get when they looked back at to where I was sitting. The entire time I was looking at and photographing the view, busloads of tourists, and stretch limos filled with prom-going kids stopped so everyone could photograph -- and be photographed in front of -- the view.
The photo cried out for a telephoto lens, which I don't have, and i missed photography's peak ``magic time'' (or ``golden hour'') by about 15 minutes. But even so, the view is way spectacular.
The view sweeps from the Bay Bridge at the left:
to the Golden Gate Bridge at the right:
After we'd admired the view sufficiently, we went over to the east side of the island where the movie was to be shown. As it turned out, the movie in question was ``The Sting,'' and the battery for the projector conked out after the first reel. But it didn't really matter, as the experience was so fun in itself. We brought fruit, cheese, bread, a bottle of good red wine, Meg's inevitable chocolate, and some lawn chairs, so we spread out in the parking lot and had a picnic anyway. To be fair to the MobMov folks, this was the initial showing for the 2009 season, so it was understandable that some of the technical details were not fully realized.
One of the best parts of being on the island was a chance to see the giant ZPMC crane from Shanghai that's been brought in to lift parts of the new bridge into place. (All my friends know I have an inner 10-year-old boy aspect that loves big machines, anything mechanical, and is always curious about how things work). Here's a great video showing the crane's arrival by ship.
This crane is enormous, and can lift more than 1,800 tons at one time. It will be used to raise the deck segments for the self-anchored suspension bridge that is replacing the present cantilever bridge that partially failed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Amazingly--or maybe not so amazingly, if you know Bay Area politics--it's 20 years since that quake and the damage to the bridge, yet the finished replacement is still years away. The most recent completion date is now set for 2013.
The crane is painted red, white and blue, and is sited on top the ``Left Coast Lifter,'' a 100' by 400' barge that was custom made for the job. It dwarfs all the giant cranes used in the Port of Oakland to load and unload container ships. Here it is at rest at the end of the working day.
All in all, the trip to Treasure Island was worth it, although I won't be making it on a regular basis because I'm still scared of the freeway entrances and exits. A number of people now live on the island in a variety of housing arrangements, but I think many of them get back and forth to the city by bus, rather than car, thus avoiding having to deal with those exits themselves. Next time I make the trip, I'll shoot some of the buildings, which definitely are worth recording.
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