It's a rainy day on a dock on San Francisco Bay. A sign in three languages warns that eating the local scavenger fish could be a health hazard. Behind the fisherman is an enormous abandoned industrial building, all glass, brick and steel. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake cracked bricks off the parapet on the side facing the bay, and rubble litters the dock. A sleek sailboat whispers toward its berth in a nearby exclusive marina community.
Cargo cranes top the immediate skyline.
The cavernous shed echoes with dripping rain, and Parker says the plant, designed by famed factory architect Albert Kahn, is full of the ghosts of the industrial hive it once was. This is Richmond, Calif., a city of 94,000 northeast of San Francisco. It's a harbor town trying to make a big comeback in a short time. The city's population ballooned from 23,000 to 123,000 in two years. A new Rosie the Riveter park memorializes the civilian war effort, and redevelopment plans for the Ford plant include a home front history museum to be operated by the National Park Service.