Press Coverage: Here are some articles about our journey
Sausalito ferry exhibit proceeds with county OK
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The county has signed off on a Sausalito project to create a park exhibit honoring the ferry boat Charles Van Damme and its colorful history — which included ferry service, a movie set as well as a nightclub where the likes of Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia hung out.
The county’s Community Development Agency gave its approval to the project earlier this month and those behind the plan will next have to go before the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission for its blessing. Perhaps more daunting is the need to raise as much as $500,000 to see the project through. “It’s been 10 years of work saving what’s left from being demolished,” said Judyth Greenburgh, co-founder of the Charles Van Damme Ferry Project. “We will make it happen.” The group already raised the money needed to move the Van Damme’s now 100-year-old paddle wheel and steam stack from the Waldo Point Harbor to a boatyard three years ago. Plans call for the parts to be brought back to a planned Waldo Point park at Bridgeway and Gate 6 Road as an interpretive exhibit outlining the Van Damme’s story and its significance as a piece of Marin’s maritime and cultural history. Built in 1916, the Van Damme, named after its original investor, was a sidewheel ferry that was the first to carry cars, cattle and people between Richmond and San Rafael — and an occasional prisoner was carried over to San Quentin as well. “We need to promote our maritime history, our nautical history,” said noted Sausalito architect Michael Rex, who is working on the project. He is also president of the Richardson Bay Maritime Association. “We need to preserve what’s left.” The Van Damme’s service as a ferry came to an end 40 years after it began, but the boat took on a whole new life when it landed just north of Sausalito. In 1960, four years after it was decommissioned, it was towed to Sausalito’s Gate 6 — the heart of the houseboat community — by Don Arques, a member of a prominent property-owning family on the waterfront. The Van Damme’s first incarnation in Sausalito was as Juanita’s Galley, an oddball restaurant run by local legend Juanita Musson. She let her pet birds and exotic animals mingle with her customers, among them local celebrities such as former madam and Sausalito mayor Sally Stanford, actor Sterling Hayden and San Francisco columnist Herb Caen. |
Aesthetically interesting in its new location, Hollywood called and the ferry made an appearance in the 1965 movie “Dear Brigette,” with Jimmy Stewart, Fabian and Brigette Bardot.
In its counterculture heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, the Van Damme became a haven for rock stars, actors and artists. As a plush after-hours club called the Ark, it was a hangout for some of the biggest rock musicians of the 1960s. Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jerry Garcia, Steve Miller, Otis Redding, David Crosby, Bob Dylan and Moby Grape all played at the Ark. In the 1970s, the Van Damme became the social and cultural hub for houseboaters and anchor-outs, who were then fighting a battle against Marin County authorities in what became known as “The Richardson Bay Houseboat Wars.” The conflict was dramatized in the movie “The Last Free Ride.” By the time the ferry was condemned as a health and fire hazard by the county in the early 1980s, various plans were floated to turn it into a library, a community center and a youth hostel, but they all fell through. The $300,000 it would have taken to bring the old paddle-wheeler up to code was nowhere to be found and the Van Damme’s days were numbered, but it did not go quietly. On a Tuesday in March 1983, protesters lay down in front of bulldozers and climbed on top of the ferry’s steam stack. Thirteen people were arrested, but they couldn’t stop the inevitable. By the end of the day the Van Damme was gone, but the paddle wheel and steam stack remained. “It’s important to do this,” Rex said of the efforts to create an exhibit from those last pieces of history. “We need to tell our stories.” 
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Historic Ferry Boat gets moving
Soren Hemmille, Marinscope 10.02.2013
Workers prepare to remove the Charles Van Damme ferry steam stack at Waldo Point Harbor - photo by Dona Schweiger
The Charles Van Damme ferry is on the move, or at least parts of it is; the steam stack and paddlewheel have been lifted and relocated and are being readied for the next phase of the project.
The artifacts were moved from Waldo Point Harbor on Thursday, Sept. 26 completing the “save” phase of the project, according to Dona Schweiger, co founder of the Charles Van Damme Ferry Project, an effort aimed at saving the historic ferry boat. “The steam stack and paddlewheel have been moved to Mike Linder’s Bayside Boatworks in Sausalito,” Schweiger said. “Each was lifted by crane and put on trailers for the short drive down Bridgeway.” The next phase is the restoration portion of the project with the hope of returning the artifacts to the park in time for the ferry’s 100th birthday in 2016. The Van Damme was built in 1916 to carry cars and passengers between Marin and the East Bay. It was destroyed in 1983 after it was declared a safety hazard by the county, and efforts to rebuild it failed |
Petaluma resident Chris Clarke remembered seeing the ferry in Sausalito while growing up in Mill Valley. Clarke’s grandfather, Raymond Clarke, had the Van Damme built for the Richmond-San Rafael Ferry Company.
Charles Van Damme was a prominent businessman at the time and was related to Raymond Clarke by marriage, Clarke said earlier this year. Judyth Greenburgh, another co-founder of the ferry project, once lived on a nearby dock along with many old-time Sausalito houseboat community members who would tell stories about the Van Damme. She said the community’s history needs to be preserved. “Everything is becoming homogenized. For me, the Van Damme is a symbol of a different way of life,” Greenburgh said. For more information about the Charles Van Damme Ferry Project visit charlesvandammeferry.org. |
Historic ferry boat the Charles Van Damme on the move again in Sausalito Mark Prado - Marin Ij 09.30.2013
Photo by Dona Schweiger
The last pieces of the famed ferryboat Charles Van Damme are one step closer to becoming an exhibit.The Charles Van Damme Ferry Project aims to turn the ferry's paddle wheel and steam stack — moved Monday from near Sausalito's Gate Six Road — into an interpretive exhibit. View Full Story
Deadline looms to save remains of famed ferry in Sausalito Marin IJ 08.01.2013
THE DAYS OF Marin's most famous paddle wheel may be numbered as a deadline looms to move the remaining parts of the well-known ferryboat the Charles Van Damme, which rests along the bay's shore near Sausalito.
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Click here to read the article in the Marinscope July 10th 2013
Letter to the editor
We won first prize in the Sausalito 4th July Parade 2013
Thank you Victoria from the Sausalito Wooden Boat Tour for creating the float and for Joe and Maggie plus others for performing and participating.
Thanks for all who came to commemorate 30yrs since the ferry was torn down at the candle light vigil.
There was a good turnout for such a last minute affair! I think The Charles Van Damme was well represented and it shows how much she is still loved.
Thanks to Tom Barron for reminding us of this momentous date. Michael Rex for the RBMA's continued support, Joe Tate for performing, Chris Clarke for representing the family of Ray Clarke the creator of the ferry. Victoria Colella for all her passion and of course Dona the co founder of this project who's integrity I couldn't do without.
There are many others to thank - without support this project cannot succeed, We are in the critical life or death stages of saving the Paddle wheel and steam stack - so- like a paddle wheel turning we must keep the momentum going..
Thanks to Tom Barron for reminding us of this momentous date. Michael Rex for the RBMA's continued support, Joe Tate for performing, Chris Clarke for representing the family of Ray Clarke the creator of the ferry. Victoria Colella for all her passion and of course Dona the co founder of this project who's integrity I couldn't do without.
There are many others to thank - without support this project cannot succeed, We are in the critical life or death stages of saving the Paddle wheel and steam stack - so- like a paddle wheel turning we must keep the momentum going..
Ferry Flashback Charles Van Damme supporters gather at Waldo Point Harbor on the 30th anniversary of the destruction of boat Click here for the article in Marinscope March 6th 2013
Letters to the editor
Links to other articles about the Charles Van Damme.
Marinscope- Sausalito Historical Society: Where are Sausalito’s old ferryboats now? - by Annie Sutter
Juanita
http://styrous.blogspot.com/2013/03/juanitas-gallery-on-ferry-boat-no-less.html
Photo pool
http://www.flickr.com/groups/charlesvandammeferry/pool/
Last free ride
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/201723
Famed ferry's final voyage - Marin Ij Article
- Paul Liberatore
Juanita
http://styrous.blogspot.com/2013/03/juanitas-gallery-on-ferry-boat-no-less.html
Photo pool
http://www.flickr.com/groups/charlesvandammeferry/pool/
Last free ride
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/201723
Famed ferry's final voyage - Marin Ij Article
- Paul Liberatore