by Elizabeth Coleman
Several years ago, I was taking a stroll around my neighborhood in San Francisco and came upon the old Union Iron Works and Bethlehem Steel machine shop on Pier 70. Although I’d walked past the empty, industrial building dozens of times, something about the angle of the sunlight as it hit the cracked, dirty windows sparked my imagination.
I wondered “what if?”
What if there was a secret behind those broken windows? What if inside those weathered old bricks and boarded up doors was a startup, working on radical innovations that could change the world? And because everything is better with a little bit of magic, what if that startup was a magical startup, run by supernatural creatures who worked to better humanity and save humans from themselves?
And the idea for my urban fantasy novel, City of Sevens, was born.
Potrero Point on Pier 70 has a rich industrial and maritime history. Shipbuilding started in Potrero Point during the gold rush, and several other heavy industrial companies including a sugar refinery, rope manufacturer, and steel and iron mill operated there as far back as the 1850s. In 1883, Union Iron Works moved its headquarters there and built the machine shop, where skilled workers used forges, blacksmith, and machine tools to make and repair the thousands of metal items needed to make large steel ships and engines. Bethlehem Steel bought the business in 1905.
During WWI and WWII, Bethlehem Steel was hugely successful, building hundreds of warships and submarines and repairing thousands. After the shipbuilding and shipping industry declined, the City of San Francisco bought the property in 1982. With one of the largest dry docks on the west coast, the repair facilities were leased out and continued to operate, often accommodating large cruise ships.
The machine shop building was used continuously until 2004, when seismic concerns forced the City to close it. When I moved into the neighborhood, the City had not yet renovated Pier 70, but over the past several years, it has started developing the waterfront area. The machine shop has since been repaired and seismically retrofitted, preserving its historical integrity and architecture. Nowadays, it houses various startups and businesses, though none quite with Myst’s unique vision for the future.
“The Interview” is an excerpt from my novel City of Sevens, and is about the main character’s first time experiencing Myst’s magical headquarters. With the rich history of the building as a backdrop and the existing architecture in place as the exterior, I was free to let my imagination take over to design the interior of what a supernatural tech startup would look like. Although there is magic in the headquarters, I grounded the design in reality to capture a true startup feel. If you’re curious what that might be like, make sure to check out “The Interview” in Volume I of Ground (available now on Amazon!).
Next time you see something old, broken, and abandoned, ask yourself “what if?”
You have no idea what one little question might spark.