Big fan of this thing. It's one of my favorite places to take friends who visit the Bay Area.

Something that's not mentioned in the article is that the building they occupy is a former warehouse of Marinship, a World War Ⅱ shipyard that made Liberty Ships and T2 oil tankers used to supply fuel in the Pacific Theater: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinship

The Bay Model building has a Marinship museum in a front room. For anyone who wants to see Marinship's full story in motion, here's my HEVC encode of ‘“Tanker” — 1942–1945 War Time History of Marinship Corporation’ https://mega dot nz/file/lgtmlKIA#asrzuwGOxi6l8I5BmgyAxfKkm1zFcxvY4SYS1SxqtZk

See also Marin City, which is the remains of Marinship's on-site worker housing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_City,_California

e: the Bay Model building is the big square one that is center-frame starting at 04:30 in the video, Marin City at 09:23, and some beginnings of modern-day international oil politics at 12:28.

I went to SF once for a few days and this is one of the things my friend showed me in my limited time there. I remember it from time to time. It's pretty cool.

Im trying to reflect on why it was so memorable. I thought it was interesting at the time but it wasnt mind-blowing or something. I think it is just just such a unique oddity and a relic of the past. There was so much effort and space devoted to this. You'd never do something like that today.