Terminal Island put on list of endangered places
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fear that several century-old tuna fish canneries and a shipyard in Los Angeles harbor will be demolished has prompted the National Trust for Historic Preservation to put Terminal Island on this year's most endangered historic places list.
The trust issued its 2012 list Wednesday in Washington. Eleven sites are listed, including one more in California that includes three bridges over the Merced River in Yosemite National Park.
"Terminal Island presents an incredible opportunity to transform a vital piece of America's industrial past for new uses while also preserving an important part of our nation's cultural history," trust president Stephanie Meeks said.
Proposed road realignment at the harbor would require demolition of three pioneering tuna fish canneries, the shipyard, a cannery steam plant and three boat-repair buildings, the trust said.
Port officials contend none of the buildings are targeted for demolition and the trust used an inaccurate road realignment map to reach its conclusions.
"The consultants didn't accurately portray the realignment. They didn't nail it down completely," port planning director David Mathewson told the Los Angeles Times.
Geraldine Knatz, the port's executive director, agreed. "We don't have any projects in our 10-year capital plan that call for the demolition of any buildings," she said. "We have no projects right now that impact the historic resources."
Port officials are mistaken if they don't believe any of the Terminal Island buildings are threatened, said Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy. Three buildings on the Al Larson Boat Shop property and the steam plant building are targeted for demolition, she said.
About the map dispute, she said: "It would have been nice if they had told us they're disowning their map."
Terminal Island was used in the early 1800s by Spanish ships carrying provisions to monks at the San Gabriel Mission.
In 1893, the California Fish Co. started processing sardines on the island. A decade later, when the sardine business waned, the company developed a process to steam cook and can tuna.
With tuna billed as a cheap substitute for chicken, canneries — including Van Camp Seafood Co. which became Chicken of the Sea and Star-Kist — thrived. There were 1,800 workers and 4,800 fishermen.
Thousands of Japanese fishermen and their cannery worker wives lived on Terminal Island in the 1920s and '30s. But in 1942, nearly 3,000 of them were among the first Japanese in the country to be rounded up and moved to internment camps.
The tuna industry started its spiral in the 1960s. In 2001, Chicken of the Sea was the last of the plants to close, leaving all the canneries vacant.
Other vacant structures include 16 buildings at the former Southwestern Shipbuilding yard.
Much of the activity at Terminal Island in recent years has been for Hollywood. Movies like "Live Free or Die Hard" and television shows like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" have been filmed there.
Six Los Angeles-area sites — the Century Plaza Hotel, the Ennis House, Santa Anita Racetrack, the former Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Vibiana, Downey's original McDonald's restaurant, and a South Pasadena area targeted for freeway expansion — have been included on previous lists, and they all still exist, Dishman said.
Nationally, more than 230 sites have been included on the list over the years and the trust says only a handful have been lost.
"We look forward to working with our partners to ensure that Terminal Island continues to thrive as a center of commerce in Los Angeles, and that its role in American history is preserved for future generations," Meeks said.
___
Online:
National Trust for Historic Preservation, http://www.PreservationNation.org/places
