Albany Bulb

Description

The Albany Bulb is a former landfill largely owned by the City of Albany, in California. The Bulb is the west end of a landfill peninsula jutting west from the east shore of San Francisco Bay. The term "Bulb" is often used to refer to the entire peninsula, which includes the Albany Plateau, north of Buchanan Street at its base; the high narrow "Neck," and the round "Bulb." The Bulb is part of the City of Albany, and can be reached via Buchanan Street or the Bay Trail along the east side of San Francisco Bay.HistoryLike the Point Isabel peninsula to the north and the Berkeley Marina, Point Emery, and Emeryville Marina Peninsulas to the south, the Bulb peninsula is a relic of almost a century of systematic filling of the shallow Bay and its adjacent wetland. This filling was largely halted by efforts of Save The Bay from the 1960s to the 1980s. The usual fill method can be seen in the rectangular lagoon at the west end of the Bulb peninsula, a remnant left when legal action finally forced closure of the dump: Enclose part of the shallow Bay with rock and concrete rip-rap, fill the created lagoon with garbage and debris, and (usually) top off with a layer of clay. The development dream was to join the peninsulas, leaving a narrow shipping channel edged by commerce.The tidelands off Berkeley and Albany were sold by the state in the 1870s, as railroads extended tracks northward along the waterfront from the Oakland terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. (These tracks soon beca