Ramble 30: Wouldn't it be nice...?

Marge and Sergei are history buffs (each in her/his own way). And they're bikers... and hikers...and explorers who have ideas about how communities could be, if only....
The city of Alameda is a great spot for biking, hiking, exploring, idea-mongering history buffs to pontificate about what was...and what could be.
So, let the pontificating begin...

What was...
Below is the "Bird's Eye View of Oakland and Vicinity" map, published by the Oakland Tribune, that shows Alameda before it was Alameda, even before Alameda was the island that it is today. FYI: around the turn of the - last- century, engineers and visionaries cut through the peninsula that attached to the Oakland Hills (the area on the left of the map) to enlarge the estuary.

The land west (lower right) of soon-to-be Alameda on this Bird's Eye map hosted the trans-continental railroad terminus...about two decades-plus before further infill to engineer what became Navy Air Station, Alameda..
The Y-shaped water course shown on the map was in-filled to engineer current day Lake Merritt. What's left of the wider inlet to the estuary is now a narrow channel near current day Laney College and 5th Street. (If you drive or ride a bike you can reach this spot by driving along the Embarcadero; you'll know you're crossing this spot when you go over 5th Street bridge.)
The portion of land now known as Alameda Point (showing shipping and harbor on the map) was in-filled with dredge material (some of which contained "marsh crust" - a PAH-contaminated material from early coal energy industry).
Until 1995 this infill area was the active Naval Air Station, Alameda. This base was shut down in '95 and the area is now a series of contamination clean-up sites, some of which are on the National Priorities List for Superfund sites (aka CERCLA).
Across the estuary, north west of the Oakland harbor, was a military supply depot. That was shut down in the early 1990s and some of that area is now Middle Harbor Shoreline Park.

Look at Sergei's pictures ...then...
....imagine if Alameda's City Fathers and Mothers (aka the City Council) extended their interest in our city beyond a compulsion for traditional ways of managing our budget and finances;
... imagine if "we, the people" managed to convince the council to create a huge, beautiful park on the former base! (Council members will say they are creating a park...Marge means, instead of an afterthought park, rather use the whole of the "unused" - aka the "Federal portion" - and most contaminated - parts of the base and turn the whole thing into a park! Run by East Bay Regional Park District (oh, yes, almost forgot, the City and officials have set in motion what con only be ongoing grudges and bad feelings from earlier discussions on such a park. Why do our city officials appear to be widely talented in ways to rile other entities and subsequently end up in law suits? Here's another law suit...also with EBRPD. And, here's a Small Faces song for city officials to hum as they gear up for another expression of that talent: Wouldn't it be nice?
Instead of open space and beautiful park with sustainable directions, Alameda Point is destined to become the usual configuration business park with residences and all the usual "getting and spending" and laying "waste our powers" . (For a foray into different media, read below to read how William Wordsworth put this...then listen to John Lennon's still apt, "Imagine".)

Views from Middle Harbor Shoreline Park

View from the lookout tower at Middle Harbor Park into the Alameda/Oakland Estuary toward San Francisco...

(Left) Downtown San Francisco skyline, photo taken from the tip of Alameda Point.  Since this area is closed to the public for on-going contamination clean up, this pic was shot during the annual bus tour put on by the Navy Base Clean up team.
Note: the bus tour was open to the public. As of this year, 2013, it is only open to members of the Restoration Advisory Board.

(Below) Expanded view of the skyline from the same spot, the northern most tip of Alameda Point.

(Below) Oakland docks, among the busiest docks on the west coast, sits on the estuary pretty much as in the Tribune map - only a lot bigger now than it was then.

 This is a good picture to keep in mind when you read the poem, below, or listen to Wouldn't it be nice...or better yet,  listen to Imagine.


"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"

          THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
          Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
          Little we see in Nature that is ours;
          We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
          The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
          The winds that will be howling at all hours,
          And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
          For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
          It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
          A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;                        
          So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
          Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
          Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
          Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
                      William Wordsworth, 1806.