History Trumps Art on San Francisco Waterfront

"Labor historian and folklorist Archie Green just scratches his head and chuckles when it comes to artwork along San Francisco's waterfront, including what he called 'a modern stainless steel skyscraper or some god-damned thing' and 'a gal in a bikini and a little child.'

Green is 91 and sports a stocking cap and a Burgess Meredith glint in his eye. He can warm up a room of government officials like nobody's business. So when the retired shipwright and his pals wanted to get a defunct shipping crane refurbished as a blue-collar addition in the public art and installation column, officials started to listen.

'All of the work on the waterfront is so abstract and so artistic and so representative of high culture,' Green told the Port Commission at its Tuesday meeting in the polished Ferry Building. 'There's nothing on the waterfront today that signifies those of us who built this building, who built this waterfront.'"