Richmond

Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park

Ok, this is confusing. On Day 5 of the 2016 sightseeing season, I started off the day exploring the Richmond in San Francisco. The Richmond is short for the Richmond District, just as the Castro is short for the Castro District and the Mission is short for the Mission District. Even Haight-Ashbury is sometimes referred to as The Haight. It’s a San Francisco oddity. Richmond, on the other hand, is a city in the East Bay area. It took me a while after moving to San Francisco to figure out the difference between Richmond and the Richmond.

View of San Francisco across the bay from Sheridan Observation Point in Richmond by the Visitor Education Center at Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park.

Richmond is known as a gritty, industrial city with a reputation for crime. It’s not a place that’s seen as a draw for tourism. However, since 2000, it’s been home to the unwieldily named Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park. So I just had to go!

The park is not 1 site but several sites located throughout Richmond. I visited most of them. 1 site I didn’t get to was SS Red Oak Victory. The Victory was a World War II ship built in Richmond. It’s now a museum ship. Unlike the rest of the park’s sites, it’s not easily reached by public transportation so I had to pass on a visit.

I started out the morning by taking BART out to the end of the line to Richmond. From there I had to wait for the bus. I kept waiting to see the crime that Richmond was notorious for. But I just saw squirrels running around. I didn’t observe any unlawful behavior from them. Finally the bus came and I took it out to the waterfront.

Ford Assembly Plant

The Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant was built in 1930 as the largest assembly plant on the West Coast. During the war, it was converted to wartime production. 49,000 jeeps and 91,000 tanks and other military vehicles were assembled in the plant. The plant is now used for commercial purposes, including retail.

Architect Albert Kahn designed the Ford Assembly Plan as a “daylight factory”, with window openings that let the California sun shine onto the factory floor.

Visitor Education Center

The Visitor Education Center contains the main exhibits of the park. It’s located adjacent to the Ford Assembly Plant.

The Visitor Education Center has exhibits on Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park’s primary theme of how WWII impacted life in the US during the war.

Production of cars was shut down by the government for the war effort. Instead, jeep parts were put together in the Ford Assembly Plant.

Workers from the home front donated their ID badges to Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park.

Welder Barbara Pasco recalled overcoming her initial fears of working with her white male coworkers.

Unemployment went from 25% at the peak of the Depression to 1.2%, thanks to the war effort.

The character Rosie the Riveter came from a 1942 song inspired by women working in factories and shipyards during the war. The famous “We Can Do It” poster was created in 1943 by graphic artist J. Howard Miller as part of an inspirational series for workers at Westinghouse Electric. It wasn’t until decades later that Rosie the Riveter became associated with the poster.

Rosie does her part on the home front to fight foreign fascism.

I’m a strong proponent of public transportation. And I’m pretty well known for being anti-Uber (and anti-Lyft as well). I personally wouldn’t take it as far as this poster does though!

Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park

Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park is named for a local activist. It honors the wartime contributions of shipyards throughout the Bay Area.

View of San Francisco from Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park.

View of Oakland from Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park.

Marina Bay Yacht Harbor. I never tire of pictures of sailboats in marinas.

Rosie the Riveter Memorial

The Rosie the Riveter Memorial was the precursor to Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park. The entire memorial is the length of one of the ships built in Richmond. It was created by women to honor the women who worked at Richmond’s busy shipyards during the war. More ships were built during the war in Richmond than in any other shipyard complex.

Panels on the memorial tell the stories of women who worked at the shipyards.

The women who created the memorial were inspired by the women in their families who worked on the home front during the war.

A timeline along the memorial tells the story of what was going on nationally and locally.

The memorial comes to an end at a pier representing the imaginary ship’s pier.

Quotes from workers are installed along the memorial.

Barbara and Jay Vincent Park

Barbara and Jay Vincent Park is on a point that juts out into San Francisco Bay.

Nice view of the Ford Assembly Plant from Barbara and Jay Vincent Park.

View of Berkeley from the park. Right in the center is Sather Tower, the bell tower at University of California, Berkeley.

Shimada Friendship Park

Plaque commemorating the friendship between sister cities Richmond and Shimada, Japan.

Located on the waterfront, Shimada Friendship Park commemorates the friendship between sister cities Richmond and Shimada, Japan. They became sister cities in 1961.

Monument of friendship at Shimada Friendship Park.

View across San Francisco Bay from Shimada Friendship Park.

Central Richmond Sites

After exploring the sites on Richmond’s waterfront for hours, I took the bus into the interior of Richmond to checkout some of the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park’s historic sites spread throughout the city.

The Kaiser Field Hospital was opened in 1942 by Henry J. Kaiser, owner of the Richmond Shipyards, because at that time, more Americans were being killed by accidents on the home front than on the battlefield. Kaiser instituted what was then a groundbreaking workplace healthcare system. It grew to become today’s Kaiser Permanente healthcare behemoth. (Oddly, the Permanente part of the name is named after Permanente Creek on the San Francisco Peninsula.)

Richmond Fire Station 67 was built to service Richmond’s shipyards during the war.

Nystrom Village was a 102-house development built for shipyard workers during the war.

Nystrom Village was supposed to be temporary. Today it is low-income housing.

Maritime Child Development Center was one of the innovative child care centers built for children of the women working at the shipyards.

As I waited for the bus to head out to the last site of the day, I noticed this Veterans Mural on the Veterans Resource Center.

Atchison Village

To get to the last site of the day, I had to take a bus to the BART station and then another bus to Atchison Village. Atchison Village was one of the housing developments built in Richmond during the war for shipyard workers. Atchison Village is made up of 450 units in 97 1-story buildings and 65 2-story buildings

Unlike other developments that were built during the war, including Nystrom Village, Atchison Village was built as permanent housing.

The difference in quality between the homes in Atchison Village and Nystrom Village is readily apparent.

Richmond was the western terminus of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. From there, passengers would take a ferry to San Francisco. The railyards are close to Atchison Village. Near Atchison Village there’s a neighborhood called Santa Fe. I’m not aware of a Topeka in Richmond.

Cactus landscaping in bloom at Atchison Village.

[Factual information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]