Author Jennifer Gennari has written a history of Sausalito’s counterculture houseboat community for the current issue of Marin Magazine.
Titled Wild and Free, the article is illustrated with historic black and white photographs by Catherine Lyons-Labate of A Dock from her coffee table book, Once Upon a Waterfront.
Jen’s article focuses on the waterfront children of the ‘70s who grew up with a freedom unheard of for youth today. They roamed the docks in packs and learned early the value of community. Catherine’s daughter was one of those kids and she saw first–hand that there were dangers as well as delights in the early houseboat community.
Jen profiles four different individuals who spent their formative years in that community of Bohemians, artists and renegades:
Born in San Francisco, Tahoe Boaz moved to Galilee Harbor (then Napa Street Pier) when he was 4. Today he is doing what he always wanted as a Southern Marin firefighter.
Kaitlyn Gallagher grew up on Gate Six. She’s a teacher because of her childhood and her education at Martin Luther King School in Marin City. She wrote the poem We Knew a Waterfront in Catherine’s book.
Reason Bradley’s first home was in the Arques shipyard on Gate Three, followed by the Gates Co-Op. Today the self-taught welder and maker owns Universal Sonar Mount in Marinship, where he helped restore the sea lion statue that had toppled into the bay.
Krystal Gambie is the third child of a large and well-known family headed by Penelope and Michael “Woodstock” Haas, who started the alternative Garlic Press. She now owns Waterfront Wonders at 314 Caledonia Street, specializing in arts and crafts by locals and waterfront memorabilia.
Jen Gennari is a children’s book author and editor who lives on Issaquah Dock. Mimi Towle, the editorial director of Marin Magazine, resides on Gate 6 ½.