Alameda

Book excerpt: Alameda was once a peninsula of grassy fields and sandy beaches, separated from Oakland by a snaking estuary. A tidal canal made Alameda an island in 1902 and its waterfront became a major shipping port. Park Street's bay-windowed commercial buildings looked out on a prosperous city of streetcars and comfortable homes. Between the two world wars, Alameda's Neptune Beach resort and amusement park became the “Coney Island of the West,” eventually boasting a Moorish entrance tower on Webster Street, a stadium, two swimming pools, a high dive, and a roller coaster called the “Whoopie.” Alameda's strategic location made its “airdrome” the busiest in the world in the 1930s and eventually attracted a U.S. Coast Guard base, known as Government Island, and the Alameda Naval Air Station.