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At LaborFest 2010,
The Tasty Menu of Years Past Grew
Even More Delicious

By Jeanne Halpern

This year, I skipped my usual LaborFest menu choices – the 1934 Waterfront Strike Hike, the Maritime Boat Ride and the WPA Bus Tour.  Instead, I ventured outside of San Francisco to sample three tempting new menu items.  As appetizer, I tasted Berkeley WPA sites.  For an entree, the Public Utilities Commission’s (PUC) bus ride in San Mateo County.  And for dessert, I indulged my senses at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

Berkeley WPA

Being an aficionado of all things Art Deco, I found Harvey Smith’s WPA walk around Civic Center Park an intriguing introduction to 1930’s architecture, sculpture, and bas reliefs in Berkeley.  Smith’s thorough historical narrative explained how old and new, as in the Post Office murals and materials, were combined in individual buildings.  Most impressive was the artistic exterior of Berkeley High School, which emphasized not only the fine artisanship of the period but also the high value placed on making educational sites both functional and beautiful. On the other side of the park, the memorable exhibit at the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum, “The 75th Anniversary of the WPA in Berkeley and Its New Deal Context,” captured the era with photographs and text by Smith, along with materials from local collections.  This walk proved to be a fine introduction to the many historic LaborFest events offered in Berkeley this year.

Peninsula PUC 

And now to the present. Limited to twenty-five passengers, the bus ride to San Francisco PUC peninsula projects was a first for LaborFest, a one-of-a-kind event.  Though the tour explained how water from Hetch Hetchy gets to my faucet, its emphasis was on work now going on to seismically retrofit Crystal Springs Reservoir, originally constructed between 1887 and 1890, and to build the Baylands Tunnel, which will connect piping from Newark in the East Bay to East Palo Alto on the peninsula, bringing water to twenty-seven communities.  This five-mile, east-to-west tunnel will be the first under San Francisco Bay actually built underwater, the BART tubes having been built above ground and then submerged.

This being LaborFest, the PUC and guest speakers emphasized work at different sites requiring different kinds of workers such as highly specialized pile drivers and deep-water divers, job corps apprentices learning a trade, and high school students earning money for clothes and books.  At the Baylands site in East Palo Alto, for instance, we heard from several San Francisco students removing invasive plants and planting over a hundred native species, thereby meeting the project’s EIR to form an environmentally safe cap over the Baylands project. 

At the classical Pulgas Water Temple, where PUC provided lunch and drinks, we learned details about the technical work being undertaken by members of the Pile Drivers, Divers, Carpenters, Bridge, Wharf, and Dock Builders Union, Local 34, from the Union’s field representative, Richard Weller.  After having heard so much about underwater work during the coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf, it was interesting to learn more about the technical challenges facing people working on undersea projects in settings closer to home.  Though the bus tour was packed with information, it was also quite constrained. I wished we’d had more chances to walk at Crystal Springs and enjoy the beauty of this magnificent reservoir and better appreciate its value to the San Francisco Bay area.   

Mare Island

Who would have thought a five-hour tour of a rusting, decaying naval shipyard could be such fun?  Most of the credit goes to Myrna Hayes of the Mare Island Heritage Trust, our guide.  At the outset in the lovely Alden Park, its five missiles and old-fashioned gazebo shining in the sun, Myrna outlined the shipyard’s long history. 

As a protection against pirates who attacked California shipping, the facility was founded in 1854 by David Farragut, who later became the first Admiral of the U. S. Navy and a Civil War hero. Its dry docks, handsome brick manufacturing buildings, and munitions assembly and storage sites served the country for 142 years, until closed by the Navy in 1996.  Over those years, it produced and launched not only sailing ships prior to the Civil War but the first ship with a flight deck, the USS Pennsylvania, in 1911 and the first nuclear submarine built on the West Coast, the USS Sargo, in 1957.  The shipyard’s finest hour came during World War II, when, as the Navy’s largest civilian shipyard, it employed up to 4,000 workers in round-the-clock shifts.  Workers were known to have produced a destroyer in a record seventeen-and-a-half days. Since the Navy turned the shipyard over to Vallejo in 1996, the main challenges have been environmental clean-up and the decision on what to do with the site.  Currently, the Lennar Corporation, also working on the development of Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, has a contract to develop parts of the island.

After we left Alden Park, admiring several dignified old buildings that reminded us of the Presidio, we found ourselves at the dry docks in the shipyard, itself.  Among us were several men who had worked here during and after the war.  They talked of the “ghosts” of years past, when the clanging metal was alive with the voices of thousands.  Now, we saw at the tops of the rusting frameworks nests of ospreys and a few birds flying.  After hearing former workers such as a fellow named Dave explain the workings of the famous old Drydock #1, the first drydock in the Pacific, we walked up to the Museum for glimpses of its past glory.  Then we moved on to the other end of the island.

Here, in a spacious grassy area with picnic tables and a good view across the Napa River toward Vallejo, we had lunch and listened to several speakers.  Most fascinating, of course, was the detailed presentation of the Port Chicago munitions explosion, fire and strike, after which the Navy unjustly court-martialed and imprisoned fifty black men, who were later released and dishonorably discharged.  What I enjoyed most, however, was learning about the thrust for the environmental salvation on the south end of the island – for picnicking, birding, and hiking. Myrna Hayes, who is also co-chair of the Mare Island Restoration Advisory Board that oversees environmental clean up, had, in fact, threaded our entire outing with references to protecting the area for future generations. 

To see for myself what the south end had to offer, I first meandered through the old cemetery, which dates back to the 1850’s and marks among its residents, Anna Key Turner, daughter of Francis Scott Key, and her family.  From there, I joined a merry group of LaborFesters, led by Mike Daly, on a walk to the top of the island, from which we could see seven counties.  Along the way were markers by community volunteers explaining the significance of each stop and pointing to the 1852 US Geologic Survey marker.  I found this day on the “north shore” of San Francisco Bay a magical combination of history and nature.  I only wish that all good dreams for the future of Mare Island come true.

Jeanne Halpern, 08/09/10