Reply To: The Larkspur Ferry in the '70s-early 80's (from original forum archive)
the shoreline between larkspurs train tressel and San Quentin on one side and trian tressel to back of greenbrae bowling alley, we're 2 of my families favorite fishing spots. i remember playing along those banks as a child, my dad managed the Shell gas station right next to zims for some 20+ something years. The area where the landing shopping center is, (specifically where the offices in front(next to freeway) and the movie theater) is where the Go-Cart track was, then later Victoria Station. I imagine it was something related to a train yard of some sort before the go-cart place, because we use to play in the train cars left there before they used some of them for the restaurant, and the ferry terminal, the structure part of the roof, was supposedly used in the filming of the first Star Trek movie. Katy
You may recall that Larkspur Landing shopping center was under construction during the same time as the Larkspur ferry terminal. The first runs of the ferry kind-of coincided with the grand opening of the shopping center. The two worked promo deals together, and tied it all together with the soon approaching Christmas shopping season. Through some crazy fluke, myself and my girlfriend got hired to be the official Santa and Mrs. Clause, and were center stage throughout all the hub bub. We had to ride back and forth on the boats, dispensing cheer, candy canes (now, thats an original idea), and lots of "Ho, Ho, Ho's". Santa got to know the ferry bartenders pretty well...( Mommy, why does Santa smell like bourbon?) They had this grand Santa Pavillion in the shopping center, and we did the "little kid on the lap" thing for hours at a time. Mrs. Clause was a real trooper! The pay was lousy,but, actually, it was all kind of fun.
Imagine letting your ~10 year old kid ride the Larkspur ferry to the city with his buddies, they hang out all afternoon walking to Pier 39 to play video games, walking to China Town to buy fireworks, then taking the ferry back to Larkspur. Those were some good times!
I remember taking a free round trip on the ferry its first day of service. That was a huge deal for a 7 year old!
