Battle to Preserve Bay Area Shipyard; Queen Mary, Queen Mary II to Meet

Dwayne Clark of the Boating Safety Law and News blog alerted the heritage community to the controversy in the Bay Area regarding a development plan for the Mare Island Naval Shipyard and a nearby historic district. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Preservationists, including state and federal officials, are outraged by the plan, which they say does not adequately consider alternatives to eliminating many of 183 historic resources, some of which everyone agrees will likely have to go." Let's hope Bay Area heritage advocates can successfully push back on the development plans. Kelly at Maritime Compass has more historical details including a period painting of the shipyard.

The Cruise News Blog reports that the cruise liners Queen Mary and Queen Mary II will meet for the first time Feb. 23 in Long Beach Harbor near Los Angeles. One of the area's best known tourist attractions, the original Queen Mary sailed as a Cunard liner from 1937 to 1967. Queen Mary II is nearly twice as large as her predecessor, and she's sailing out of Long Beach harbor for the first time, thus the meeting. Footnote: The blog entry is a great read if you like breathless hyberbolic prose that's about 20 percent real information.