From:
http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Copra_Crane_in_Islais_Creek
http://foundsf.org/images/1/1b/Copra-crane3648.jpg
The Copra Crane, located on the Islais Creek Channel, dates
back
to a time when coconut meat, also known as copra, was imported
from
the Philippines and pressed into coconut oil at the nearby
Cargill
Mill.
ILWU Local 10 longshoremen worked the pier, using picks
and
shovels to break up the large pieces of copra in the ships'
hulls.
A large suction pump known as a blower then moved the copra
pieces
to the mill where ILWU Local 6 members processed it into oil.
The
remaining "copra meal" was pressed into pellets, put into 100
pound
sacks and the warehousemen prepared it to be shipped across the
bay
to warehouses at Colgate-Palmolive-Peet and McKessin-Robbins.
The
crane was used to load the copra meal onto outbound ships.
The crane and the mill have not been in use since the
mid-1970s.
Currently they are owned by the San Francisco Municipal
Railway,
the city's public transit agency, which had plans to demolish
both.
But Julia Viera, a local resident who dreamed of building a
park
at the area, organized her neighbors into the "Friends of
Islais
Creek Channel." The group persuaded Muni to postpone destroying
the
crane until it could raise the money to build the park, a
much-needed open space in the often neglected
Bayview/Hunter's
Point neighborhood, and create a historic labor landmark.
At the mini-park on the south side of the channel the Friends
of
the Urban Forest have planted trees. The north side of the
channel
where the crane is located will be developed into a park
featuring
a 700 foot promenade and a museum (a refurbished walking
bosses'
shack) with photos, artifacts and written history. Industrial
artifacts from the copra processing plant are being salvaged
and
will be used as sculptures throughout the park.
RECONSTRUCTING HISTORY
Walking Boss Local 91 foremen Bud Riggs, Will Whitaker and
Joe
Amyes have been helping to piece together the story of the
crane
and of Pier 84. ILWU oral historian Harvey Schwartz (author of
the
book "The March Inland" on ILWU warehouse organizing in the
1930s)
also has been gathering the history of the crane, pier 84 and
the
Cargill Mill, interviewing people who worked there.
From:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/07/MNA41CB2RS.DTL
http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2010/03/05/mn-native07_PHb2_0501298328.jpg
By Carl Nolte
This is a sad story about a memorial that never was and about how
a
house, once the home of an unforgettable San Franciscan named
Bill
Bailey, was forgotten by his friends and left to rot.
Bailey was a longshoreman, a sailor, a tough guy, an old
Communist, a writer, a storyteller. He wasn't like the lefties
you
see now, all talk and no action. He was the real thing: Born in
New
Jersey, he grew up in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, and went to
sea
when he was a kid.
He'd been a hobo and a bum, got thrown in jail more than
once,
was wounded four times fighting the fascists in the Spanish
Civil
War, and once ripped the swastika flag off a German luxury liner
in
New York. He'd been in a dozen strikes on both coasts, was
vice
president of a couple of unions, worked on the San Francisco
waterfront when the city was a real port, and was blacklisted
in
the big red scare of the 1950s.
Bailey was a big man - 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds - and handsome
as
a movie star well into his 70s. He had parts in three or four
films, and Robert De Niro, who played tough guys in the
movies,
flew him to Los Angeles more than once.
For the last 37 years of his life, Bailey lived in one of
those
houses old San Franciscans dream of: a one-room cottage on
Telegraph Hill, at the top of the Filbert Street steps, like
a
country cabin in the big city. He rented the place. A working
guy
like Bailey could never afford to buy a house on Telegraph
Hill.
He was an affable man, "a colorful figure, very charming,"
said
Ken Maley, who lived on the hill and knew him.
"He was rugged, one of a kind, an individualist, a socialist,
"
said Peter Dwarres, who lived nearby. "He gave the
neighborhood
character."
Bailey died in February 1995, at the age of 84. Not long
afterward, the owners of the little house decided to tear it
down;
the land was worth a fortune. A great site for condos.
There was a huge stink. The neighbors loved Bailey; he was
part
of the city's history.
The politically powerful Telegraph Hill Dwellers tried to
block
demolition to save Bailey's little house as a museum to the man,
a
piece of the past. Maley, who worked in the campaign to save
the
house, remembered how hard people worked.
Finally, a compromise: The house would be moved, maybe to
City
College, or a park on Telegraph Hill, or some other
appropriate
location.
But no good site turned up. On a summer's day in 1999, the
little house was lifted off its foundation, put on a flatbed
truck
and taken to a temporary location near a Muni yard at the corner
of
Tulare and Indiana streets near Islais Creek.
If there was ever a San Francisco backwater, this was it.
Islais
Creek is south of the baseball park, south of Dogpatch, and
north
of the Bayview district. Years ago, ships unloaded copra from
the
South Seas there, but no ship has called at that dock for years.
A
perfect place to dump a dead body. Or a derelict house. They
left
Bill Bailey's house there that summer day and forgot about it.
Joe Butler, who admired Bailey and wanted to save the
house,
kept an eye on the place and knows its story. Squatters took
over
the first winter in that godforsaken corner of the city. They
got
in an argument over dogs and drugs. One tried to burn the
other
out. The roof caught fire and then 10 years of rain wrecked
the
interior.
Now it sits, surrounded by a fence topped by razor wire.
"It's a ruin," said Jack Gold, executive director of San
Francisco Architectural Heritage, which owns the house. "It's
damaged beyond repair. It's too far gone to fix. It's very sad.
"Can anything be done? I don't think so," he said.
Meanwhile, on Telegraph Hill, the condos were never built.
The
site of Bill Bailey's old cottage is a vacant lot.