Empress Hornblower at the Northern Berkeley Marina

Empress Hornblower at Sunset, ink and watercolor, 5×7 in

The Empress Hornblower is part of a fleet of party boats moored behind a ritzy hotel at the northern Berkeley marina, an area long-time residents remember as the old Berkeley dump.

Before "ecology" and "global warming" were common words, cities dumped their garbage, old cars, construction rubble, etc. in the San Francisco Bay. As they filled in the bay with garbage, they created new land on which they built housing, freeways, and, when they finally closed the dump, parks and hotels.