Yerba Buena Island

…San Francisco to Oakland via Yerba Buena Island. One of the preeminent engineering feats of the 20th century, it was built during the 1930s under the direction of C.H. Purcell. It opened to traffic on November 12, 1936.

…natural islands of Alcatraz and Yerba Buena and man-made Treasure Island, created for a world’s fair in 1939 and later turned into a naval base (1941–93). Alcatraz (Spanish: “Pelican”) was from 1934 to 1963 the most notorious maximum-security, “escape-proof” prison in the United States. In 1969, after the decaying cell…