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James Marshall’s discovery of gold at Coloma in 1848 set in motion a world-wide migration of fortune-seekers to the gold fields of California. In the first year of the gold rush, over 62,000 of those immigrants came by ship, landing in San Francisco and abandoning their vessels as fast as their legs could carry them.
By 1850, the bay held nearly 600 abandoned brigs, barks, ships and whalers, left to rot by the starry-eyed argonauts who had crowded aboard to reach their dreams. The ever-resourceful denizens of a flea-infested, fire-prone city made use of those ships, turning them into warehouses, saloons, bordellos, hotels and shanghai dens: over time, many of those vessels became landlocked, standing side-by-side with brick and mortar buildings, until conflagration or new construction erased their above-ground traces.
For most of the Gold Rush fleet, San Francisco was not only their last voyage, but their final mooring, as over 50 of those vessels still lie beneath the skyscrapers, restaurants, bars and plazas of downtown San Francisco, restless in the darkness.
A crew of bay area writers, musicians and artists are busy now weaving yarns, strumming sea shanties and placing their ear trumpets to the pavement, summoning up the ghosts of Shadowless Sam and Mizzentop Joe, so that you too can experience the voices and visions of the Armada of Golden Dreams.
Landmark 1: Rome
1 Market Street @ Steuart Street (SE corner)
Author: Sarah Fran Wisby is the author of Viva Loss, a book of prose poems and short stories published by Small Desk Press. She works at Rainbow Grocery, selling organic food to the masses, and teaches a small class called Valencia Street Writing Lab out of her living room.
Landmark 2: Bethel
Jaskson Street and Drumm Street (underneath condo complex)
Author: Troy Flint
Troy Flint is a resident of Oakland where he works as Director of Public Relations for the Oakland Unified School District. Formerly a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, among others, Troy has published travel writing, music reviews and sports columns in numerous online publications, many of them now defunct. Since he enjoys wandering aimlessly around the city with headphones on, Invisible City Audio Tours seemed like a natural fit.
Landmark 3: Alida
122 Jackson Street (underneath Safeway)
Author: Toni Mirosevich is the author of pink harvest (midlist press, 2007, first series in creative nonfiction award), and four collections of poetry. a new book of poetry, the takeaway bin, is forthcoming from spuyten duyvil. she grew up around ships and boats in everett, washington, where her father's boat, the 'western maid', a 75 foot purse seiner, fished the waters of the bering sea, was sold upon his early death, passed through two more owners, was left for dead and sank in the harbor at coos bay, oregon, was dredged up, fixed, turned into a crabber, and at last sighting was still operating out of winchester bay, oregon. with all this sinking and rising, the armada of golden dreams sounds like a perfect dream of a project.
Landmark 4: Balance
Sidney G. Walton Park (SW corner)
Author: Gravity Goldberg is co-founder and editor of Instant City: A Literary Exploration of San Francisco. Her work has been published online: SFGate, Stretcher, and Rumpus.net and in print: Watchword, Transfer, Morbid Curiosity, and Kitchen Sink. She is festival manager of the West Coast’s largest literary festival, Litquake and teaches creative writing at City College.
Landmark 5: Almandralina
Front Street and Pacfic Street
Author: Amanda Davidson is a writer, multimedia artist, and teacher. Her fiction and has appeared in various anthologies and journals including Encyclopedia: Vol. F-K, Instant City, and Baby, Remember My Name; her book reviews and features have appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Film Arts Magazine, and elsewhere. She is an editor of the online publication DigitalArtifactMagazine.com. In 2009, she was a writer-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony and the Art Farm Nebraska. Find out more at partedinthemiddle.com.
Landmark 6: Arkansas
298 Pacific Street (underneath The Old Ship Saloon)
Author: Jason Buchholz is an east bay writer and editor. His novel Paper Son unfolds against a background of historical San Francisco and the Pacific immigrant experience of a century ago. An alumnus of USF’s creative writing graduate program, he is the art director and an editor of Achiote Press and has also worked as a journalist and a travel writer. He lives in El Cerrito with his wife Rachel McGraw, with whom he has collaborated on award winning short films, and their one-year-old son Hawthorn, whose chosen means of artistic expression are drumming and wild dancing.
Landmark 7: Niantic
516 Clay Street
Author: Anne Schukat is a freelance journalist who often writes about science and technology. She is a regular contributor to The Economist's Technology Quarterly, and her work has also appeared in Fortune, Fodor's Travel Guides, and Intelligent Life, among other publications. Anne, who grew up near Cologne, Germany, came to the San Francisco Bay Area after finishing high school. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley's School of Journalism and now lives in Palo Alto, California. When she is not on assignment, she enjoys traveling the world, including frequent visits to her favorite city Berlin. Links to many of her stories can be found online at www.anneschukat.com.
Landmark 8: General Harrison
408 Clay Street at Battery Street (underneath the Starbucks and Elephant & Castle bar)
Author: Don Menn has served as editor-in-chief of magazines such as Guitar Player and Multimedia World; written for such publications as San Francisco Magazine, Harper's, The San Jose Mercury News, The San Francisco Chronicle and written liner notes for Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. Don Menn knows a word or two. He’s been chasing them around a page for longer than there’s been paper. He no longer uses an eraser. He chooses instead “delete,” though some say, not enough. He’s been published in lots of places hither and yon, some you’d know, some he doesn’t remember, some no longer in print. Enough said.
Landmark 9: Apollo
412 Sacramento Street at Battery Street (under the Bentley Reserve Building)
Author: Britta Austin received her BA in creative writing from San Francisco State University in 2006. Her first book, Artifacts, is available from Watchword Press. Her work has also appeared in Transfer Magazine and Watchword magazine. She is a member of the More Cowgirl Writers' Collective and an editor for Small Desk Press. She lives, works, and writes in San Francisco.
Landmark 10: Euphemia
382 Sacramento Street at Battery Street
Author: Dave Seter studied creative writing at Princeton University, where he earned his degree in civil engineering. Born in Chicago, he has lived on both coasts, and currently resides in Sonoma County, California. His first collection of poems, the chapbook entitled Night Duty, was published in 2010 by Main Street Rag Publishing Company.
Landmark 11: Thomas Bennett
312 Sacramento Street (underneath The Royal Exchange Bar)
Author: Lindsey Grant is the Program Director of National Novel Writing Month, an event of California-based non-profit the Office of Letters and Light. She earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Mills College in Oakland. Lindsey recently co-authored the writing journal Ready, Set, Novel! to be released in 2011 by Chronicle Books.
Landmark 12: Autumn and the Unknowns
Davis Street and Market Street
Author: Ali Lanzetta is a linguistic, visual and musical artist, living in San Francisco. She holds a BA in Studio Art, an MA in English, and is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing, at San Francisco State University. Ali's work has appeared in Transfer, Hunger Mountain and Verse, and her writing, music and book art have been featured at various creative venues around the city. Ali was born with the sun in Scorpio. She is enamored with giraffes, whose hearts are over two feet long. To read more of Ali's work, please visit her online writing space, makeshift whimsy.
