8:30 a.m. at West Richmond Avenue and
South Garrard Blvd.,
Point Richmond, CA, see Yahoo maps
http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=37.927585&lon=-122.383185&zoom=16
8:30 a.m. at West Richmond Avenue and
South Garrard Blvd.,
Point Richmond, CA
With a big refinery a few hundred yards away,
you'd think there would be a lot of people
around here who know a lot about pipelines.
I am glad this is not oil or gasoline.
8:30 a.m. at West Richmond Avenue and
South Garrard Blvd.,
Point Richmond, CA
8:30 a.m. at West Richmond Avenue and
South Garrard Blvd.,
Point Richmond, CA
8:30 a.m. at West Richmond Avenue and
South Garrard Blvd.,
Point Richmond, CA
8:30 a.m. at West Richmond Avenue and
South Garrard Blvd.,
Point Richmond, CA
8:30 a.m. at West Richmond Avenue and
South Garrard Blvd.,
Point Richmond, CA, that's my windshield in the
lower part of the photo
3:30 on the way back home. There were once two wig
wags. This one is going to be lonely. Do two disabled
wig wags have the right to remain together, or will
Jim Crow laws prevail?
3:30 on the way back home. That's probably
the end of this wig wag. The Santa Fe RR wanted to
get rid of them. This History Society wanted
to keep them. Looks like the railroad got its way
again. Historically, the railroad won most of
its battles.
Poor old wig wag was too heavy to live.
Maybe they will close the railroad line through
the tunnel forever and make the tunnel into
another bar. Or how about a strip mall
in an old historic railroad tunnel? Have any ideas
for creative land re-use? The Point
Richmond Neighborhood Council gave Treasurer Art
Mowry a plaque of appreciation for getting the
drive-by mailbox and then he publicly predicted that
he might have another wig wag fight on his hands
pretty soon. Maybe he knows something about it.
These people didn't know anything or else
they just weren't talking to the press. One asked
me if I was the president of the homeowners'
association. I said no, I was just passing by
on my way home and couldn't ignore it. It was
too big to ignore. Too big to turn my head the other way.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Sunday afternoon EBMUD employees were hard
at work repairing the huge cave-in in the street
in front of the Mechanics Bank. Here they are
picking up big piles of concrete with a front
loader and putting it into a dump truck.
It became a big equipment show for the passersby,
including many children going to the Plunge, which remained open--this
is a busy intersection for Point Richmond. Notice this
shiny new EBMUD truck parked here. You can see the dirty one
that does all the work in another photo.
Another shot of the front loader picking up concrete.
This dad had gotten his small son out of bed
to come and see the work. He forgot to
get the child out of his pajamas.
Here's a photo of a man in the pit. I do not cross
the yellow line to take photos, so I could not get
close enough to the pit to photograph it. Believe me,
you don't want to find out what happens to you
if you cross that yellow or orange police tape.
Another photo of the pit, just so you can see how
big it is. Back in the 1970's architec t Tom Butt
commissioned the Point Counterpoint editor (me)
to create a historic display that would be inside
the Plunge next to the reception counter. I was given a
diagram of a pipeline that led fromthe Plunge
out to the Bay and I was told that the pipeline
fed salty water into the Plunge. I think what really
happened was that the Plunge was built as an emergency
storage for gasoline and the pipeline from the Plunge
to the bay was to serve as a refueling pipeline in time
of war. They would not be able to see it from the air,
so it was not likely to be bombed. That's my guess,
anyway. Now the Plunge has been completely rebuilt,
but the emergency pipelines are still there getting very old, just no
longer connected to the Plunge. This might have been
one of them, but I will probably never know for sure
where all that water came from. I'm pretty sure it
didn't come from the Plunge itself, since the Plunge
remained open.
Still trying to get a good shot of the man in the pit.
What's left of the wig wag has been moved to a parking
place next to the bank.
They were still working at 7:30 p.m. Sunday evening.
The repair was almost complete.
