Letters
to the Editor
Sex Sells
Editors note: Last month, we printed two of
the many letters we received in response to our March cover story "Here
Comes the Sun" featuring Dr. Robert Dane, inventor of the new solar ferry.
The common theme of all the letters we received, including one from a
self-styled "Fairy for Ferries", had to do with Dr. Dane’s looks.
Dr. Dane responds:
Dear Editor,
Just got back from Denmark the land of my
fore fathers to find your most recent issue.
Well..what can I say????
1. At least there was a hetero letter there.
2. My wife is not letting me
come to San Francisco alone!
3. The boys in the factory are paying me out
big time
4. How far would I go to sell a boat?
5. Any publicity is good publicity?
Best wishes to you and your interesting and
cosmopolitan magazine.
Kindest Regards
Dr. Robert Dane
Solar Ferry
Northbridge, Australia
Name the new Alameda Ferry after Harre
Demorro
Dear Editor,
As an Alamedean and dedicated ferry rider, I
write to urge that the new Alameda ferry about to come on line be named in honor
of a honored son of Alameda, Harre W. Demoro .
Harre W. Demoro was the preeminent
transportation writer and historian in the San Francisco Bay Area. Demoro, who
died in 1993 from complications of a heart operation, covered transportation for
the Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle for many years
and wrote 13 books on the subject.
Herb Caen called him "a great reporter’’,
Don Wood, professor of transportation at San Francisco State University said he
was the "Preeminent transportation and transit historian’’ of the Bay
Area, and Quentin Kopp, then chairman of the state senate transportation
committee, called him "the soul and historian of regional transportation.’’
Demoro was interested in all forms of public
transit—including streetcars, rail service and BART—but his real love was
ferryboats. Four of his books had large sections about ferries from Seattle to
the vessels operated by the Key System the Southern Pacific to Oakland and
Alameda and the Northwestern Pacific in Marin County.
When east bay ferry service was revived in
1989, Demoro took the boat everyday and wrote about ferries constantly in
stories in The Chronicle. He took such an interest in the boats and the
service — he always referred to the vessels as "luxurious ferry steamers’’—that
he was an institution on board. When the deckhands learned that he was to have
an operation, they volunteered to donate blood.
Harre W. (for Wilkins) Demoro was born in
Oakland, and grew up in Alameda. He went to Encinal High School and always
retained an affection for the island city—""The Isle of Style’’
he called it. He attended Hayward State University, served in the U.S. Army, and
went into journalism with stints on nearly all the Bay Area papers. He won a
number of awards and participated in the civic life of the region. For many
years, he was chairman of the board of the Western Railway Museum in Solano
County and at the time of his death he was president of the Press Club of San
Francisco.
He was one of the most consistent and
effective advocates for ferry service and public transportation in the region
and greatly respected by all who knew him or read his books and newspaper
articles. He was truly an institution in the region, and his friends and
colleagues commemorate the anniversary of his death every year with a dinner in
his memory.
I find it difficult to think of a more
appropriate individual to name our new ferryboat after. If Vallejo can honor
their Mayor Anthony Intintoli by naming a boat and Tiburon Mr. Zelinksy, naming
our new boat after Harre Demoro is the right thing to do.
Denis Ko
Alameda
CONTINUE
