The Incredible History of San Francisco's Coast, as Seen From the Air

Perhaps no region in America has a coastline as fascinating as the San Francisco Bay. The water's edge is larded with incredible industrial sites in various stages of growth or decay – secretive aeronautic labs, former explosives factories (some that have actually exploded), bloody-looking salt ponds, rusty naval "ghost ships," and distended municipal dumps that smolder and belch fire.

Many folks may not realize the wealth of historically significant, now frequently polluted sites within a stone's throw of San Francisco and Oakland. Barbed-wire fences and vast buffers of asphalt and marsh keep them safe from the casual explorer's view. But fly a small aircraft over the Bay Area and the industrial giants reveal themselves: sprawling compounds, often dissolving back into the soil and sea, that would fit right in with land art monuments or the smoke-veiled skyline of Blade Runner.