What does the working waterfront look like today? Famed nature photographer Dennis Anderson spent a day riding the ferries and walking the Embarcaderos, capturing the faces of the modern waterfront, including: plutocrats, regulators and, reassuringly enough, ferryboat workers and pile drivers.
Published: June, 2005
The Ports
Harold Jones (left) and Renne Dunn (right) are the public faces for, respectively, the Port of Oakland and the Port of San Francisco. Jones, repping the mighty Port of Oakland, is often in the public eye, soothing and explaining with deft charm and disarming openness. Dunn is no less in the maelstrom, wrestling with the public relations conundrums that often vex the venerable Port of San Francisco
The Wharfinger
Bob Cathey is a wharfinger for the Port of Oakland. Wharfingers are responsible for key areas of the Port; all ports have them. The unusual term was first used in 1552. Before joining the Port of Oakland, Cathey flew rescue helicopters for the Coast Guard.
The Pile Drivers
Lamont Woods (left) and Aidan O’Kane (right), members of Pile Driver’s Union Local #34, work on the Pier 1/2 through 3 restoration project, on San Francisco’s northern waterfront. O’Kane, a native of Derry, Ireland, now lives in Castro Valley; Lamont Woods lives in East Oakland. Both ride the Harbor Bay Ferry to work each day.
The Regulator
Brad McCrea works with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a state agency responsible for both conserving and promoting development along the waterfront, paradoxically enough. All development within 100 feet of the Bay waterline is under BCDC’s purview, putting McCrea, whose brief is the San Francisco waterline, and his colleagues, in the bulls eye of controversy. BCDC’s current priority is opening up the Bay to public access, particularly with the Bay Trail project.
The Union Heavies
Marina S. Secchitano (left), Regional Director of the Inlandboatmen’s Union (don’t ask) represents ferryworkers. Frank Riley (right) is Vice President of the Ship Clerk’s Association, and if you don’t like it, you can just fuggetabudit. Actually, Secchitano and Riley represent a new breed of union leader. As savvy to modern markets as they are ferocious in protecting worker’s rights, both unions are affiliated with the fearsome ILWU, the dockworkers union. The pair are standing on the spot where three dockworkers were slain by management goons during the Great Strike of 1934, which led to the creation of the ILWU, and the modern United States union movement. The events could be seen from the Audiffred Building, just across the Embarcadero.
The Farmer’s Friend
Lulu Meyer is a manager of the Farmer’s Market at San Francisco’s Ferry Building, perhaps the Bay Area’s premiere outdoor food market. Meyer sets up the Market each day and coordinates, and sometimes corrals, countless farmers and the thousands of eager shoppers their ever-changing produce attracts.
The Trucker
Bill Aboudi runs 100 trucks out of the Port of Oakland and provides services to hundreds more through his Oakland Marine Services outfit. Aboudi is an advocate for truckers, who are the least paid and most overworked of all waterfront workers. Not coincidentally, truckers are almost entirely immigrants and people of color
The Plutocrat
Tom Lockard is a happy plutocrat. He is the managing director of major bond broker Stone & Youngberg LLC – an anchor tenant of the Ferry Building. His firm arranges financing for major civic and corporate projects, and he gets to make it all happen from his 3rd-floor perch overlooking the Bay
All photos by Dennis Anderson.
Buy Mr. Anderson’s Hidden Treasures of San Francisco Bay at the Bay Crossings Ferry Building store.
