That building looks so old, and the windows look broken and patched, and the tank looks so rusted. I wonder how it would fare in an earthquake. It's eerie looking.
We were wondering that too: big brick building with not a lot of evidence of maintenance. There are many broken windows, but maybe they have been left broken to provide natural ventilation against spontaneous explosions from the sugar cane processing - I don't know. I have heard that it is very hot working inside, maybe it is company provided air conditioning for the workers - they work faster when not suffering from heat prostration.
In most of the windows you can see warehousing going on inside, like right up against the windows it looked like. Some areas of the building you could see inside, and we could see XXX girders a little way inside which either shows original earthquake proofing, or evidence of a retrofit at some time. The company website says that C&H started supplying sugar in 1906 which was the year of the Great San Francisco Earthquake (April 18), so I am guessing that the building was built a little before that, along with it's docks and rail facilities, and all of the equipment shipped in - I'd think that would take longer than half a year, which means that the building survived that earthquake. I think that by 1906, most buildings were probably steel frame structures, the bricks being merely a skin. I suppose that the building may also have survived because it is pretty far from the San Andreas Fault, but it is not so far from the Hayward Fault which crosses N/S through the San Pablo Bay.
People have been saying that the Hayward Fault has been expected to go ever since I moved out here - 40 years ago. It's long overdue they say - the last two big quakes on the Hayward were in 1836, and 1868 - that's 143 years since the last biggie. C&H might not do so well whenever that dark day should arrive. I'm sure it's foundations right on the river bank are not as formidable as they should be, or up to the standards of today's engineering codes. I'd bet the work is pretty hard in that old place.
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Date: 2011-06-05 10:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-05 11:25 pm (UTC)In most of the windows you can see warehousing going on inside, like right up against the windows it looked like. Some areas of the building you could see inside, and we could see XXX girders a little way inside which either shows original earthquake proofing, or evidence of a retrofit at some time. The company website says that C&H started supplying sugar in 1906 which was the year of the Great San Francisco Earthquake (April 18), so I am guessing that the building was built a little before that, along with it's docks and rail facilities, and all of the equipment shipped in - I'd think that would take longer than half a year, which means that the building survived that earthquake. I think that by 1906, most buildings were probably steel frame structures, the bricks being merely a skin. I suppose that the building may also have survived because it is pretty far from the San Andreas Fault, but it is not so far from the Hayward Fault which crosses N/S through the San Pablo Bay.
People have been saying that the Hayward Fault has been expected to go ever since I moved out here - 40 years ago. It's long overdue they say - the last two big quakes on the Hayward were in 1836, and 1868 - that's 143 years since the last biggie. C&H might not do so well whenever that dark day should arrive. I'm sure it's foundations right on the river bank are not as formidable as they should be, or up to the standards of today's engineering codes. I'd bet the work is pretty hard in that old place.