[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 21596-21598]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        AL ZAMPA MEMORIAL BRIDGE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, September 9, 2003

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, within the next few 
months the people of my district and the San Francisco Bay Area will be 
celebrating the opening of the new Carquinez bridge span across the 
Carquinez Straits. This event will be more than the opening of a new 
highway bridge; it will be the celebration of a man's life, the 
revitalization of a community, and the ongoing building of America.
  The new bridge will be named the ``Al Zampa Memorial Bridge.'' It 
celebrates the life of a great American, Alfred Zampa, an ironworker, 
his family, his son Dick Zampa, and his grandsons, Dick and Don Zampa, 
who

[[Page 21597]]

carry on his great tradition. It is my privilege to share with my 
colleagues the account of this achievement in the San Francisco 
Chronicle, August 31, 2003:

           [From the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 31, 2003]

                          Bridge to the Future


 Crockett counting on new Carquinez span to make it a destination town

                          (By Jenny Strasburg)

       There's big talk these days in the small town of Crockett--
     in its corner taverns and grocery marts--about plans for a 
     November fireworks show, memories of a departed ironworker 
     named Alfred Zampa and the opening of the bridge that bears 
     his name.
       The four-lane Al Zampa Memorial Bridge is nearing 
     completion over the Carquinez Strait, the first major 
     suspension bridge to be built in the United States in 30 
     years, and the longest one built in almost 40 years.
       Labor Day weekend lends an appropriate bit of timing for 
     the home stretch of a $300 million-plus project constructed 
     by union hands and named after a Bay Area labor legend.
       For more than three years, traffic disruptions, dust and 
     the din of jackhammers, pile drivers and earthmovers have 
     tested residents and business owners in the unincorporated 
     burg on the southern edge of the strait.
       Now, Crockett is ready to get its freeway ramps back. But 
     it's looking for more than just relief from the noise and 
     detour signs. Many see the eye-catching new bridge as a 
     welcome gateway to revitalization opportunities for the town 
     of 3,200--home to a C&H Sugar refinery in operation since 
     1906.
       Crockett grew up a company town. But looking forward, it 
     has bigger aspirations.
       It wants day-trippers from San Francisco and Oakland. It 
     wants streams of out-of-town customers for its handful of art 
     galleries, antique shops and sandwich delis.
       Toot's Tavern, Club Tac and Ray's Corner Saloon--survivors 
     of a once-teeming population of watering holes that served 
     thousands of plant workers in a bygone era--wouldn't mind 
     seeing a few more rear ends on their barstools.
       ``Nobody stops in Crockett the way they used to. You have 
     to go 3 miles out of your way'' because of Interstate 80 off-
     ramp detours, said Ken McBee, who owns Club Tac on Pomona 
     Street, the main artery.
       ``Crockett hasn't really been publicized,'' added McBee, a 
     Crockett resident for 28 years. ``Nobody knows it's here. 
     They know about C&H, but they don't know what's around it.''
       During the past few years, a steady flow of iron- and 
     steelworkers, painters, engineers and other bridge crew 
     members, most of whom commute from other towns, have brought 
     some business to Crockett.
       Several shop owners, however, said they're still scraping 
     by financially.
       ``Construction workers--that's all the business we get at 
     lunch,'' whereas more highway travelers used to stop over, 
     said Chris Choo, owner of the Pomona Deli downtown. ``Access 
     is closed here, closed there. You don't understand how hard 
     it is to survive.''
       To drum up business for his bar, McBee started serving 
     Mexican dinners on Mondays and steak dinners on Wednesdays. 
     Ten dollars buys a New York strip or rib-eye with a baked 
     potato and dessert.
       Maybe word will spread when the new bridge opens, McBee 
     figures, and more city dwellers will find their way to his 
     tavern for dinner in a charming small town.
       ``I certainly hope so,'' he said. ``I'm hurting.''
       It's clear elsewhere in town that Crockett, as soon as 
     possible, wants a bit of the spotlight being shone on the 
     bridge that pays tribute to the life of Al Zampa, who as a 
     child lived down the road in the now-defunct town of Selby. 
     His family moved to Crockett when he was a teenager.
       ``This truly puts Crockett on the map in a way that's never 
     been done before,'' said Gene Pedrotti, who lives in Crockett 
     and runs a store that started there, Pedrotti Ace Hardware, 
     now located in nearby Benicia.
       A tireless Crockett promoter, Pedrotti is the central 
     organizer of a dozen bridge-opening committees that pull 
     members from Crockett, Vallejo and other nearby towns.
       For months they have worked to line up sponsors, fireworks, 
     speeches, a parade and other events to coincide with the 
     bridge's grand opening.
       The main events are tentatively planned for the weekend of 
     Nov. 8 and 9--though a hard-to-predict construction schedule 
     could change that, a Caltrans spokesman warned. Caltrans is 
     overseeing construction of the bridge, which is expected to 
     carry 120,000 vehicles per day west bound on Interstate 80 
     toward San Francisco.
       Pedrotti says that one of the biggest draws regionally, 
     once the bridge-opening fanfare has passed, will be its two-
     way pedestrian and bicycle path.
       The Al Zampa Bridge will introduce pedestrian access to the 
     Carquinez span, closing a gap in the Bay Trail that's being 
     developed in encircle San Francisco Bay.
       Traffic could flow on the new span within days of the 
     November opening ceremonies. The pedestrian and bicycle path 
     might not be open for several more weeks after that, 
     according to Caltrans.
       A 5-acre landscaped park is planned for the hillside 
     leading down to the waterfront underneath the bridge.
       ``I think a lot of people are going to suddenly discover 
     Crockett when they realize there's a cool bridge to walk 
     across on a nice summer day,'' Pedrotti said.
       Already, town boosters have worked the name and design of 
     the Zampa bridge into a logo that shows up on T-shirts and 
     ball caps for sale at small businesses in town and on the 
     Internet (www.alzbridge.com).
       The same logo decorates banners on light poles in the 
     center of Crockett.
       Zampa, during his storied career, worked on both the 1927 
     and 1958 Carquinez spans as well as the Oakland-San Francisco 
     Bay Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Martinez Bridge and Richmond-
     San Rafael Bridge.
       He became a celebrity of sorts after he survived a fall 
     from the Golden Gate in 1936. He landed in a safety net--at 
     the time a new feature of bridge construction--but the net 
     sagged. Zampa, according to his recollection in interviews, 
     hit the rocks below and paid for the trip with four broken 
     vertebrae and three months of hospitalization.
       He returned to bridge work after a long recovery.
       In Crockett and nearby El Sobrante, Pinole and other towns, 
     Zampa was known as Al, Husky, Zamp or Gramps, depending on 
     who was talking, relatives said. He helped form the first 
     Little League program and coached boys' teams in the 1940s, 
     said his son, Richard ``Dick'' Zampa, 67. Al Zampa retired in 
     1970. He died in April 2000 at age 95.
       He was alive when construction began on the new Carquinez 
     span, but he did not know it would be named for him.
       ``He was at the groundbreaking, and he was starting to go 
     down-hill, to feel pretty ill,'' said Dick Zampa, who is 
     first general vice president of the International Association 
     of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers Union and 
     president of the state's District Council of Iron Workers.
       Dick and his brother Gene worked alongside their father on 
     the 1958 Carquinez Bridge.
       ``This is a recognition of all blue-collar workers,'' said 
     Dick Zampa, whose sons Dick Zampa, Jr. and Don Zampa also 
     carry on the family's labor tradition, as apprentice 
     coordinator and business manager, respectively, of Iron 
     Workers Local Union 378 in Oakland.
       ``It's a tremendous honor for working people as a whole,'' 
     said Don Zampa, 44. ``My gramps, he'd have been pretty 
     baffled by it.''
       Al Zampa's story, recounted over the years by Charles 
     Kuralt, among others, is a dramatic one. And the bridge is 
     impressive in its own right.
       A joint venture of FCI Constructors and Cleveland Bridge, 
     the effort is multinational, pulling workers, prefabricated 
     pieces and building techniques from Britain, Japan and other 
     countries.
       The bridge is a smaller-sister of the Golden Gate Bridge, 
     with dual towers rising 410 feet above the water.
       By comparison, the Golden Gate's towers reach 746 feet 
     above the bay.
       It's expected that the new 2,390-foot span, a replacement 
     for the 1927 bridge, will attract visitors from around the 
     world--though some considered that wishful thinking just a 
     year or two ago.
       ``I was one of the last people to be convinced,'' said 
     Sharon Clark, an agent with Signature Realty in Crockett.
       Now the possibilities seem more real.
       ``We would like to be someplace (that makes) the average 
     Bay Area citizen say, `Wow, what are we going to do this 
     weekend? Let's see what's going on in Crockett.' It's 
     feasible,'' Clark said.
       Many mornings on the Crockett hillside, someone such as 
     Carl Peters, 83, of Pinole, can be found parked in the lot of 
     the Dead Fish Restaurant enjoying the view of a new 
     suspension bridge coming together below.
       ``To the people here, it's a big deal,'' said Peters on a 
     recent morning, standing beside his blue Chevrolet pickup and 
     eyeing the latest developments below on what he called ``a 
     new symbol for Crockett.''
       The retired diesel-engine mechanic has stopped by most days 
     for about two years. ``There's only one Golden Gate,'' he 
     said, ``but this is pretty slick.''
       A combination of ingenuity and humor helped the proprietors 
     of the Dead Fish survive the challenges of temporarily losing 
     the highway off-ramp by which most of their customers 
     arrived, said Dante Serafini, a partner in the restaurant.
       One of two full-service seafood restaurants in town--the 
     other is Nantucket, on the waterfront--the Dead Fish is still 
     referred to by some locals as Vera's. It formerly was Vera's 
     Villa Valona, a family-style Italian joint. Valona has roots 
     as the community next door to Crockett, with boundaries that 
     are now indistinguishable.
       Early residents, including Italian, Portuguese and Spanish 
     immigrants, came to call their town Sugar City after C&H took 
     over the waterfront flour mill in 1906.
       Through the Depression most of the C&H plant workers lived 
     in town.
       Few of them do now, and the town feels different as a 
     result, according to longtime residents such as Don Zampa.
       ``Less and less people are there for generation after 
     generation. People grew up, and

[[Page 21598]]

     there's less work in the immediate area,'' he said. 
     ``Generations of people in Crockett worked at C&H. My 
     grandfather was an exception.''

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