Letters to the Editor… Time for Ferry Riders to Seek Marin County Sales Tax Dollars…. Real Patriots Raise Taxes… Bay Crossings Journal… Boating Calendar… Bay Crossings Poetry West Marine Topples BoatU.S. Stores… Port of Call: Kyrenia, Northern Cyprus… Community Calendar… Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors Elect New Officers… Web-Based Transit Trip-Planner Serves Up …. Bay Crossings Cuisine…. Waterfront Valentine.. Very Beautiful Ferry Building on Cusp of Opening… Rescue at Sea... Cetric Concert Series in Benicia... Coast Guard Honors Bar Pilots…. MTC Awards $500,000 in New Grants to Promote Livable Communities… Waterfront Mysteries.. Bay Crossings Environment: Cruise Ships Blues…. WTA Pages…. Aging Gracelessly - The Slow Decline of the Port…. Very Beautiful Ferry Building on Cusp of Opening A cross sectional drawing of the Ferry Building showing the third floor removed to open up the "nave" and also showing the building still resting on the 5,000 original wooden piles that withstood the 1906 Earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake that damaged the Embarcadero Freeway. Drawing courtesy of the structural engineering firm, Rutherford Chekene, Oakland. The restored nave of the Ferry Building, "one of the most beautiful spaces in all of San Francisco." Photo courtesy, SMWM Architects, San Francisco. Drawings and images of San Francisco’s meticulously restored Ferry Building. This extraordinary structure, designed like a jewel and built like a giant, symbolizes a glorious past and beckons an exciting future for the Bay Area. Fifty million people a year crossed through its vaulted corridors before misguided policymakers ripped up a regional railway network and kicked aside ferries to make way for the auto and bridge rat’s nest that now befouls the Bay Area. Plans for comprehensive regional ferry service mean the Ferry Building may soon return to being the crossroads of the Bay Area.