Cement Ship, Seacliff Beach, Aptos, CA, originally uploaded by The Forgotten Works.
This abandoned Cement Ship played a huge role in the iconography of my youth, though when I was a kid you could actually walk on a small part of it — something completely verboten nowadays.
Rain gives a little background on his Flickr post:
Share on FacebookDocked at the foot of a pier, the Palo Alto has gone to the birds, so to speak. It was built at the Oakland shipyard in 1918 as a supply ship for the World War I effort. The war ended before she ever saw service and with time on her hands, she was sold to the Seacliff Amusement Company of Nevada, and towed in 1929 to what would later become Seacliff State Beach. A casino and dance hall, arcades and entertainment were featured on this monster party boat until its owners went belly up when the Great Depression rocked the world in the early 1930’s. …. Today, the Palo Alto lays in pieces on the floor of the Monterey Bay, tenuously connected to a fragile pier which was damaged in recent storms.
