Posts Tagged ‘Kaiser Shipyards’

Sunnyside physician publishes story of Permanente Northwest

posted on January 20, 2012

By Lincoln Cushing

Heritage writer

Permanente in the Northwest fills a large gap in the history of Kaiser Permanente – the unique contribution made by the Northwest region, especially in the early years.  Author and retired Northwest internist Ian C. MacMillan, who served 14 years as chief of medicine at Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Medical Center, demonstrates an insider’s insight and enviable access to details that thoroughly enrich this account.

Before there was a Kaiser Permanente, there was Permanente Metals, the division of Henry J. Kaiser’s construction consortium that built ships during World War II. The medical services offered to those civilian workers was the kernel of what would eventually grow to become one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, and with two vibrant shipyards in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, the Northwest was a key participant.

The prologue provides a history of the medical care options in the area before 1941 as well as the story of how Sidney Garfield, MD, and industrialist Henry J. Kaiser came to collaborate on their successful model of prepaid industrial medical care. This is followed by a detailed account of the wartime boom – shipyards, housing, and health care rolled into one.

Wartime shipyards in Oregon and Washington

Notable events include the then-new practice of treating civilian tuberculosis patients with streptomycin, the model day care program for workers’ children endorsed by Eleanor Roosevelt, and a rich art community.

Clipping about the completion of Bess Kaiser Hospital, July 1959, Oregon Journal

The demand for medical facilities soon outstripped the capacity of the first aid stations in the yards, and the first Northern Permanente Foundation (NPF) Hospital was built in Vancouver, Washington, in 1942, followed by a second one across the Columbia River in Vanport, Oregon, a temporary community built for shipyard workers, the following year.

That hospital was kept out of the nearby metropolis of Portland through stiff resistance by the local medical establishment, an example of a contentious relationship that would last many years.

As happened in California, the exodus of shipyard workers after the war forced the Northwest medical care program to expand to the broader community. Ernest Saward, MD, who had administered the wartime health care plan for DuPont plutonium workers at Hanford, Washington, became the medical director of the physician group and the Northwest health plan in 1947.

Changes after World War II

Dr. MacMillan explores some of the fractious cold-war dynamics of the medical partnership at that time, including debates about how KP internist Charles Grossman’s political activism was affecting the medical group’s relationship with the community.* (See note below.)

Beaverton (Oregon) medical office building groundbreaking, June 1968

By 1950 relationships had deteriorated to the point that Edgar Kaiser (Henry J. Kaiser’s son) fired them all and formed a new partnership. Dr. MacMillan details other challenges to the Northwest region, including its struggle for legitimacy with the American Medical Association and ostracism by private practitioners.

The first major postwar facility in the Northwest was the Bess Kaiser Hospital in Portland, completed July 7, 1959. (There would not be another until the 1975 Garfield-designed Sunnyside Medical Center at Clackamas, Oregon). Named for Henry Kaiser’s first wife, the state-of-the-art facility featured air conditioning, telephones and televisions in every room, pneumatic medical records delivery, and a drawer bassinet allowing newborns to slide through the wall between mother’s room and the nursery.

Tumultuous times for KP Northwest medical group

The Kaiser Permanente health plan expanded into Hawaii in 1958, and the Northwest physicians played a significant role in helping that region survive a rocky start. Dr. Saward was called out to apply his management skills when friction within the physicians group exploded. Dr. MacMillan explains some of the complex background that led to the struggle, and he chronicles the eventual maturation of the region.

Frank Stewart, administrator; George Wolff, architect, Dr. Wallace Neighbor (pointing); Northern Permanente Foundation Hospital, circa 1942.

A large portion of the book is devoted to the history of various medical specialties of the Northwest medical group, detailing medical arcana more likely to be of interest to practitioners than a lay audience.  The last three chapters trace significant chronological events in the region from the 1970s to the present.

Among these topics are the challenges of recruiting and retaining good doctors (he outlines the need for robust medical infrastructure, clear work policies, and adequate pay), the deep impact of the 1988 nurses’ strike, and the erratic steps taken by KP to institutionalize an effective electronic medical record system.

In all, this is a much-needed historical survey of a major region in the Kaiser Permanente constellation. Dr. MacMillan does not shy away from exploring awkward and complicated events in the Northwest Permanente history, and he writes with an insider’s viewpoint that enriches the accounts.

Permanente in the Northwest should be of interest to anyone interested in modern American health care policy, health practice, and the broader history of medicine.

Permanente in the Northwest
Ian C. MacMillan, MD, The Permanente Press, 2010
313 pp, with illustrations, bibliography, and index
To order the book, go to permanentejournal.com

KP Northwest historical materials brought to Oakland

Preservation of the rich history of Kaiser Permanente’s Northwest Region (KPNW) got a boost at the end of 2011 when staff of the national Heritage Resources department in Oakland packed up over 100 cartons of Northwest photographs, clippings, newsletters, and files to fold into the KP archives. These materials will be selectively processed over time and added to the existing collection, greatly enhancing our research capacity. The photographs accompanying this review were drawn from that collection.

Special thanks to KPNW Community Benefit and External Affairs staff Jim Gersbach and Mary Ann Schell for their help.

 

*After leaving Permanente in 1950 Dr. Grossman continued to practice medicine privately, and his political activism continued throughout his life (a path respectfully footnoted in MacMillan’s book in his Afterword titled “What Happened to the Pioneers?”). He was arrested in 1990 during a peaceful demonstration organized by Physicians for Social Responsibility, challenging the presence of a nuclear-armed battleship berthed near the Portland Rose Festival. His court testimony describes the scene:

“I was standing silently with several other doctors and a few others with a sign in my hand saying ‘Rose Festival is a fun time, we don’t need nuclear weapons.’ About 2:30 p.m. three or four policemen approached and asked us to leave. I asked why and was told that we have no right to stand in a city park carrying a sign. . . I put my sign down and said ‘O.K. I am not carrying a sign.’ His response was that if I did not leave within 30 seconds I would be forcibly removed. I said we were creating no disturbance and again asked why such a confrontation was necessary.  While I was writing [down his badge and name] my two arms were forcibly seized, forced behind my back and handcuffs were applied.”

 

 

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New novel tracks lives of fictional Kaiser Shipyard Rosies

posted on October 11, 2011

By Ginny McPartland

Heritage writer

Dorothea Lange photo on the cover of "Wax"

At first glance, one would think the newly released novel “Wax” is about women working in the West Coast shipyards during World War II. Famed photographer Dorothea Lange’s powerful photo of proud, bold “girls” stomping through the yard implies a story about their struggles and triumphs in that setting.

Once inside, however, the reader pretty quickly understands that the stories to be told play out far from the shipyards. Three young women who met in Henry J. Kaiser’s Richmond Shipyards in 1943 formed friendships that endured for decades. The “Rosies” earned a bit of freedom and independence that they would refuse to relinquish when they returned home.

First-time novelist Therese Ambrosi Smith says she wrote the book about “Rosie the Riveter” to spark an interest among today’s young people, especially girls. Rosie national park Ranger Elizabeth Tucker turned Smith on to actual Rosie oral histories, and the would-be author was off on her quest.

World War II’s sociological impacts explored

Smith proclaims the novel’s premise on the front cover: “Pearl Harbor Changed Everything.” Historians know this fact, and they have written millions of words about the social, economic and political effects of World War II.

Author Therese Ambrosi Smith

Smith’s approach is to place a spotlight on personal lives. She creates three main characters, Tilly Bettencourt from a small town near Half Moon Bay, California; Doris Jura from Pittsburg, PA, both in their early 20s; and slightly older Sylvia Manning, 32, from Kansas City. She shows a smattering of their shipyard employment experiences and then places them back in their peacetime lives. These war-time experiences will color all they do from then on.

Author Smith takes the theme of women’s independence full bore as the young women return home and establish a candle factory on their own. (Yes, that’s where the book title comes from!) Such a bold move had seemed impossible before the war. Despite obstacles, Doris and Tilly’s dream comes to fruition.

Life lessons learned in the shipyards

Other life lessons are to be learned as well. At the shipyards, the girls awaken to the idea that blacks should be treated equally with whites. Smith writes of Tilly’s encounter with a caring black coworker who helps her to the clinic when she receives a serious eye injury and is temporarily blind.

Later, Tilly ponders the experience: “I don’t know why,” she (Tilly) told Doris, “but this whole thing has rattled me. I mean being helped by a colored.” Smith as narrator explains: “There weren’t any coloreds in Montara or Moss Beach; she had no history with them.”

Tilly then comes to the realization: “The work was dangerous and difficult, and everyone who did it, regardless of color or background, was helping to win the war. They were all in it together.”

Doris chimes in with: “I feel like we are seeing the world up close here. It looks different.”

The racial theme doesn’t play out when the girls return home after the war. But another issue – sexual orientation – looms large for Tilly. Feeling attraction to other women, the beautiful Tilly has to fight off the eligible bachelors of her home town. She lives in her own personal hell as her parents and others push her toward marriage. In a 1940s world, she has no idea where to turn for help or understanding.

Although this book is fairly light on the historical significance of the Rosie experience, I enjoyed it. The characters are creditable and the description of the settings took me there. At times, I felt like I was sitting in Tilly’s uncle’s comfortable café perched on the coast near Half Moon Bay.

The Red Oak Victory has been renovated and will be open for the Home Front Festival Oct. 15

More about Rosies at the Home Front Festival Saturday October 15

Learn more about the Rosie experience from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. this Saturday at the Fifth Annual Home Front Festival in the Craneway Pavilion at the southern end of Harbour Way in Richmond, California. Admission is free.

Area historical societies, the Rosie national park and the Pacific Region of the National Archives will have exhibits and information to share with visitors. Kaiser Permanente Heritage Resources will have displays highlighting the pioneering medical staff who launched the Permanente Medical Care Program in the Kaiser Shipyards during the war.

The Red Oak Victory, a World War II ship built at the Richmond Kaiser Shipyards, will be open on Saturday for visitors to tour. The ship, owned by the Richmond Museum of History, is just returning to the shipyard Friday from dry dock where it has received an extensive renovation.

Lena Horne helped launch the SS George Washington Carver in Richmond, May 1943

Historian Steve Gilford will debut his new book on Saturday aboard the ship. Gilford will be signing the book, “Build ‘Em by the Mile, Cut ‘Em off by the Yard, How Henry Kaiser and the Rosies helped Win World War II,” from 2 to 4 p.m. on the ship. Shuttles will ferry visitors between the Craneway and the Red Oak.

Lena Horne tribute at USO Dance Friday, Oct. 14

The Home Front party actually starts on Friday night with the Rosie the Riveter 1940s USO Dance, featuring a tribute to Lena Horne, also in the Craneway Pavilion. Robin Gregory will play the role of the legendary singer. Also on the bill are the Singing Blue Stars, Junius Courtney’s Big Band and the dance group Swing or Nothing!

Tickets for the dance may be purchased online at www.HFF2011.com or by calling the Richmond Chamber of Commerce at 510-234-3512. Advance tickets are $20 general and $15 for seniors; tickets may be purchased at the door for $25 general, $20 senior. Anyone showing a military i.d. or wearing an armed forces uniform will be admitted for free.

Event: Home Front festival

Description: Historical exhibits and 1940s-era entertainment

When: Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Oct. 15, 2011

Where: Craneway Pavilion (end of South Harbour Way [1414] in Richmond, California)

Admission: Free

Information: www.HomeFrontFestival.com

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Health care coverage for workers’ families didn’t come easy

posted on January 16, 2011

By Ginny McPartland 

Affordable health care was an elusive commodity in 1930s America. Medical practice was becoming more sophisticated, and qualified doctors were in great demand. Consequently, private professional care was out of reach for many Americans. Employer-sponsored health plans started to spring up in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but even those progressive prepaid plans were slow to add workers’ families to the coverage.  

In 1944, during World War II, the issue of family health care reached a critical point on the West Coast. War industry yards and plants were frantically producing ships, aircraft, tanks and other war materiel; thousands of migrant workers and their families flooded rapidly expanding communities. Many workers were sick when they arrived, and many became injured as they worked at breakneck speed to meet production deadlines. 

Permanente medicine, developed by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and enterprising physician Sidney Garfield, was launched to take care of workers in Kaiser’s West Coast shipyards. The two had done this before: Garfield had set up a prepaid plan for workers on the Los Angeles Aqueduct project in 1933, and he and Kaiser had teamed up to care for workers at the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state in the late 1930s. 

The Kaiser-Garfield prepaid, group practice plan for shipard workers was progressive and exemplary by all accounts. Unlimited medical care for the individual workers was provided for 50 cents per week. But Garfield and his doctors had their hands full, so initially only the worker – not the family members – was covered by the health plan. 

Young patient seen in Fontana Kaiser Steel plant clinic

Stuart Lester of “Medical Economics,” writes in the February 1944 issue: “The principal threat to the permanence of the Permanente Foundation – which provides virtually unlimited medical care for 130,000 Kaiser shipyard workers in two states* is the workers’ complaint that it makes no provision for their families.” 

The article continues: “The family problem is especially acute in the shipyard town of Richmond, Calif., where the ratio of physicians to population is something like 1 to 4,000 and where the only hospital facilities of any consequence are those provided by Kaiser’s Richmond Field Hospital.” 

In Richmond, Portland (Oregon) and Vancouver (Wash.), nonsubscriber family members were treated for a fee.  Office visits were $2.25. For maternity, $200 covered prenatal care, delivery, hospitalization, C-section if required, postnatal care, and care for the newborn. Employees at the Kaiser Fontana steel plant in Southern California were the exception. In 1944, Fontana workers could purchase complete coverage for a family of four for $1.80 a week. 

Physicians debate how to cover families 

“Medical Economics” writer Lester refers to three possible solutions proposed at the time: an expansion of the Permanente plan to include family members; an expansion into the Richmond area by the California Physicians’ Services (CPS) prepaid plan as operating in other war industry communities; or the development of a prepaid arrangement for families through a private physician network. 

The California Medical Association (CMA) launched the CPS in 1939 to offer prepaid care to low-income families in California. Initially, the physicians association’s plan offered a “full coverage contract” that included all outpatient physician services. In 1942, CPS excluded the first two doctor visits from coverage to make the plan financially viable, according to the April 1943 issue of the CMA’s “California and Western Medicine.” In 1943, CPS, the precursor to Blue Shield, had 39,000 commercial members, 5,100 government rural health program subscribers and a total of 32,000 war housing resident members in Vallejo, Marin, Los Angeles and San Diego. 

Permanente Richmond Field Hospital

“Dr. Sidney R. Garfield, Kaiser’s medical director, sees two obstacles to an extension of his program to include families: One is opposition by the local medical societies. The other is lack of facilities – particularly in the hospital at Richmond,” Lester wrote in “Medical Economics.” The article noted that expansions of the Richmond Field Hospital and the Permanente Foundation Hospital in Oakland were under way. 

The second proposal – having CPS provide family coverage for Richmond area workers – had been tried previously and failed. In 1942, CPS  had offered a family plan in nearby El Cerrito and was not able to attract enough members. The coverage for non-Kaiser workers was enticing: a $5 flat fee no matter how many family members. It wasn’t practical for Kaiser employees, however.  To take advantage of the CPS plan, a worker would have to buy his or her own coverage for $2.16 a month and then pay $5 for the rest of the family. 

According to the “Medical Economics” article, solving of the family care issue by fee-for-service doctors was doomed from the beginning.  A shortage of private doctors and inadequacy of medical facilities made any such plan unfeasible.  Also, California private practice physicians were admittedly just tolerating the Permanente model of prepaid, group practice with salaried physicians. One private doctor told the magazine: “The Kaiser-Garfield groups are doing a job right now that is aiding the war effort, and are doing it well. But we don’t like their system.” 

Kaiser extends coverage to shipyard families 

In the spring of 1945, the Permanente medical plan, now with expanded facilities to accommodate more members, was extended to the families of all Kaiser shipyard workers. “Medical Economics” reported the details of the Permanente family care plan: for $117 a year ($2.25 per week) for a family of four, coverage was extensive. It included 111 days of hospitalization, complete diagnostic services, necessary drugs, physician services at home or medical office, major and minor surgery, and ambulance service within a 30-mile radius. Members paid an extra charge of $60 for comprehensive maternity care, $15 for a tonsillectomy and $2 for a house call. 

“Medical Economics” concluded the article with this statement: “Insurance men pointed out that the total annual cost for a family of four, $117 a year, is an amount which has generally proved to be too high for any wide participation on a voluntary basis.” 

Workers who left the shipyards could maintain coverage for a “slightly higher” premium as long as they continued to live in the service area. This retention provision foreshadowed Kaiser and Garfield’s plans to keep the Permanente medical care plan alive after the war industries shut down. 

*Kaiser shipyards health plan actually took care of workers in three states, California, Washington and Oregon, and enrolled up to 190,000 members at the peak of the war.

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Promise of jobs attracts wartime workers to West Coast shipyards

posted on November 25, 2010

By Ginny McPartland

In the fall of 1942, thousands of New York area workers boarded Kaiser Shipyards recruiting trains in Hoboken, New Jersey, heading for Oregon.  Around the same time, thousands of job seekers were catching trains from the South and the Midwest bound for Richmond, California. Still others uttered a hopeful prayer as they started up their jalopies or farm trucks and headed west. Looking to change their lives for the better, the skilled and unskilled took a chance that the West Coast dream was not an illusion.

They were leaving their hometowns where recovery from the Great Depression was elusive. If they had jobs, the pay was low. Many were deep in debt and saw higher pay in the World War II shipyards as a way to heal their ailing finances. Some were young and saw no future or excitement in their native states.  

Chicago area welders wait for train to Richmond. National Archives photo by Jack Delano.

 Individuals were desperately needed to build ships to help win the war. So it didn’t matter whether you were black or white or Asian or Hispanic – or if you had skills and experience. You could learn on the job, and if you did well, you could improve your position and pay. You didn’t even have to be healthy and strong – and many weren’t. You could seek medical care at the shipyards, and you could purchase the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, affordable comprehensive, prepaid health care for yourself and your family.  

The shipyard life wasn’t all hearts and flowers. Worker housing was inadequate, and communities were overwhelmed with newcomers.  But for many workers, migration to the West Coast opened up a new, optimistic world.  

Mississippi mother of 11 becomes shipyard welder  

Lucille Preston, reared in Clarkesdale, Mississippi (near Memphis, Tennessee), is a case in point. She first went to work on a plantation at age 12 or 13 babysitting for the wealthy owner’s children. Eventually, she cooked for the family every day and served at their elaborate parties. The generous family hosted her wedding when she married a man whose parents worked for the same prominent family.  

When the couple’s six child was on the way, Preston’s husband, Willie, caught the California bug. “My husband just came home one evening and said that there was work in Richmond, California. ‘They’re opening up the Kaiser Shipyard, and I would like to go.’ So I said: ‘Why sure,’ ” Preston told Judith K. Dunning, oral history interviewer for a Bancroft Library project in 1985.*  

Unidentified family awaiting a train in Chicago. National Archives photo by Jack Delano.

Willie sent for Lucille when he got an apartment in the war housing. She set out for Richmond on a train, eight months pregnant, carrying her one-year-old with the other four clinging to her skirt. On the platform, a kind conductor shepherded Lucille and her brood through the crushing crowd onto a car bound for California. From El Paso, Texas, to Richmond, Lucille stood holding the baby while the other children settled at the feet of nearby passengers.  

At Richmond, the Prestons settled in their new home, Lucille gave birth and a month later she was working graveyard at the shipyards and learning how to weld. Willie worked swing shift so the two took turns at parenting.  The couple had five more children over the next decade. After the war, Lucille operated a dress-uniform press at Treasure Island where she worked for 20 years.   

Lucille told Dunning her only regret was that the expense of raising eight sons and three daughters kept her from building her dream house. However, most of her children went to college – one daughter has two master’s degrees –and they all have successful careers.    

Government helps young men launch shipyard careers  

Getting to California from other parts of the country seemed a pipe dream for many would-be welders. Kaiser Shipyard recruiters fronted train fare for many who came across the country with nothing. Workers could pay back the loan when they got their paychecks. For young men 16 to 24, the federal National Youth Administration (NYA), established by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1935, collaborated with the Richmond Kaiser Shipyards to make the impossible dream possible.  

The NYA paid for transportation to California. Once in Richmond, the young men were welcomed at the Richmond War Work Residence Center where they lived in dormitories and received two to four weeks of welder training. The pay for a month was $33.30, minus $22.50 for meals, dental and medical care, work clothes and equipment. After the initial period of “confusion, bewilderment and expense,” the men were placed in shipyard jobs, according to the Richmond Shipyard newsletter “Fore ‘N Aft.” By April 1943, the project had placed 1,500 welders in Richmond yards.  

Diversity reigns in the shipyards  

Throughout the war years, the West Coast shipyards attracted all kinds of people from all over the globe.  There were actors, writers, lawyers, cowboys, farmers, housewives, shopkeepers, and doctors. Some were experienced at building ships and others had never seen one.  

Here’s how the “Fore ‘N Aft” described the work force in April 1944: “We are all kinds of people, as you can tell by listening to us – Texas twang and Brooklyn brogue, down east Yankee and Carolina drawl, along with almost every language on earth from Polish to Swedish, from Syrian to Italian. It takes all kinds of people to build ships, just as it took all kinds to build America. Shoulder to shoulder, we’ll come through together.”  

*Lucille Preston, “A World War II Journey: From Clarkesdale, Mississippi, to Richmond, California, 1942,” an oral history conducted in 1985 by Judith K. Dunning, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1992.  

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Climb the gangplank to learn about World War II’s social legacy

posted on March 13, 2010

Photo courtesy of Red Oak Victory

By Ginny McPartland
If you grew up in the Bay Area, or anywhere in America for that matter, you’re missing the boat if you haven’t been out to experience the Red Oak Victory ship docked on the Richmond waterfront. Granted it’s difficult to find, and in fact, you may never have heard of it. Not to worry, most people haven’t yet visited the Rosie the Riveter National Park where the ship is found.

The Red Oak Victory, built in the Kaiser Richmond shipyards in 1944, is a huge hulk of seaworthy steel that embodies a million stories pertinent to our society’s past. The ammunition ship, saved from scrap in 1998 by the Richmond Museum of History, serves as the chief artifact of the home front city’s museum collection. Volunteers have renovated much of the ship, which carried essential cargo for battles in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. www.ssredoakvictory.com

Richmond, and other Bay Area shipyards, figured fantastically in WWII home front America. The Bay Area was radically changed forever by the phenomenal influx of 200,000 shipyard workers and their families from around the nation. Every type of individual was represented in the newly configured social structure of California.

The legacy of World War II’s sociological impact is fully explored and documented in books and other items in the Red Oak’s museum gift shop. Notable examples are: “To Place Our Deeds” by Shirley Ann Wilson Moore; and “World War II Shipyards by the Bay” by Nicholas A. Veronico.

Red Oak mast

Just a few changes nudged by the war: Women working with men in industrial settings for equal pay; blacks and minorities working with whites for comparable pay; the emergence of professional child care centers; employment for the disabled; and affordable prepaid preventive health care provided by employers.
The medical care program started in the wartime shipyards lives on as Kaiser Permanente and is well documented in Tom Debley’s book “Dr. Sidney R. Garfield: The Visionary Who Turned Sick Care into Health Care,” published in 2009 by Permanente Press.

Changes in the status of women and minorities largely reverted after the war, but the seeds were deeply planted for the civil rights and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s.

Now for my confession: I grew up in Richmond, and I had never seen the shipyards or the Red Oak Victory until recently. My first visit to the floating museum was only a few weeks ago. Bay Area Historian Steve Gilford, a director on the museum board, gave me two tours of Shipyard 3 and the Red Oak. My eyes were opened to the treasure that is preserved in the depths of this honey-combed hunk of war grey welded and riveted steel.

The ship experience starts with a climb up the gangplank, a portable, suspended aluminum staircase to the main deck. From there, you step over the raised rims of the hatchways and navigate steel ladders to the various compartments of the midship house and the deckhouse. Down from the main deck you’ll find the museum, gift shop, and meeting room in a cleaned-up cargo hold.

Industrial mixer for batter

Ship's galley griddle ready for pancakes

One cheery way to introduce yourself to the historic waterfront is to partake of the $6 pancake breakfast offered on the Red Oak Victory once a month from April to October. The first one for 2010 is April 11.

To get to the Red Oak Victory, take I80 to 580 West. Stay on the freeway past the Rosie the Riveter park exit and take Canal Boulevard instead. Follow Canal all the way to the bay and wind your way through the industrial area to Berth 6A.

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