The waymark coordinates are at the famous Port of LA Fish market at the end of 22nd Street at the dock inside the Port of LA at san Pedro. This part of the port is publicly accessible, but the hours are EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT and restricted -- like 0330 in the morning inconvenient.
Mama and Daddy Blaster were stationed at Naval Station Long Beach while we were in the Navy, and we remember the varied kinds of boats and shops that buzzed in and out of the (at the time) separate ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Once the Naval Station was decommissioned in the mid-1990s, the Port of LA bought it, then combined with the Port of Long Beach to become the Port of LA-LB, the container-ship unloading center of the Universe.
But the historic users of the ports, including the commercial fishing industry, adapted after a period of decline. In 2016 the Terminal Island area of the Port of LA continues to be a hub of the commercial fishing industry, and the famous fish market is going strong. Even the canneries are coming back :)
From the Daily Breeze of San Pedro CA: (
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"By Donna Littlejohn, Daily Breeze
POSTED: 02/06/14, 7:39 PM PST
There was a time when San Pedro was awash in the pungent smell of tuna fish.
During commercial fishing’s heyday in the Port of Los Angeles, 16 canneries operated across the harbor on Terminal Island, sending the industry’s sounds, odors and workers throughout the seaside community.
All the canneries are gone now, along with much of San Pedro’s once-lucrative commercial fishing fleet, felled largely by foreign competition, increased regulation and dwindling tuna.
And while there’s no bringing back the past, Los Angeles port commissioners moved forward Thursday with plans to bring a fish processing plant to three vacant Terminal Island buildings once occupied by Chicken of the Sea.
“This will be very similar to what used to happen with the canneries,” said David Hagner, environmental supervisor at the port. “Back in the heyday, every cannery had its own signal, or whistle. It was like a bugle call that went out so (workers) would know it was time to show up and go to work because the fish had arrived.”
In this case, the new plant for Fishermen’s Pride Processors — also known as Neptune Foods — will provide fish-freezing capabilities on site, eliminating the company’s current practice of loading fresh fish onto trucks, taking them 26 miles to its Vernon plant for freezing, and then trucking the frozen product back again to the port to ship as export.
In addition to cutting truck traffic, the harbor-side plant will be able to accommodate four fishing vessels instead of only two at the Terminal Island site.
Neptune also will employ 30 to 40 permanent, full-time workers year-round and provide 100 jobs during peak fishing season.
The plant will use three of nine former Chicken of the Sea buildings — some are deemed historic but the buildings being refurbished are not considered historic, having been built in the 1970s and in 1980.
The project will cost the company $7.5 million, with $1.5 million coming from the port, which expects to earn back that much in the first five years of operation.
It is hoped the new plant will be open this summer, in time for the 2014 fishing season.
Chicken of the Sea was the last operating cannery to close on Terminal Island in October 2001, finally marking the end of an era that had been waning since the 1970s.
In its day, Terminal Island served as a world fishery center, processing tuna, herring and other fish. The industry’s cherished past is the focus of “Caught, Canned and Eaten,” one of the most popular standing exhibits at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum in San Pedro.
So the idea of re-creating some of the area’s historic claim to fame was received enthusiastically by commissioners, especially those who have local ties.
“My grandfather came to San Pedro in 1920 as a fisherman and I have cousins who still fish today,” said Harbor Commissioner Anthony Pirozzi in remarks before the unanimous vote to approve the environmental study and permit for the new plant.
“This is so much a part of the tradition of our port,” Commissioner David Arian said. As he seconded the motion to approve the new plant, Arian quipped: “I’m not Croatian, but so moved.
“Nearly all of us had relatives who worked at one time in the canneries.”
L.A. HARBOR FISHING INDUSTRY HISTORY
1912: Wilbur Wood opens the California Tuna Canning Co. at Los Angeles Harbor, later bought by Frank Van Camp and renamed the Van Camp Seafood Co., which became best known for its Chicken of the Sea products.
1916: Sixteen tuna canneries in the port employ 1,800 workers.
1928: Fish Harbor on Terminal Island is completed, offering space for the canning operations to congregate to handle intake of raw fish.
1929: Seventy-five percent of catches in California are canned in Los Angeles Harbor.
1946: Tuna canning in Los Angeles Harbor becomes the largest such center in the world following World War II.
1950s: The harbor accounts for 80 percent of the 12 million cases of tuna produced in the United States. Canneries employ 5,000 people with payrolls of $15 million.
1952: The $1 million newly constructed Star-Kist plant becomes the largest tuna-packing facility in the world, covering 10 acres.
1954: A tuna fish is included in the new L.A. County seal.
1972: San Pedro fishermen begin to face serious competition from foreign fleets.
1984: Star-Kist is the first large cannery to shut down.
2001: Chicken of the Sea tuna canning plant closes down, displacing 250 workers.
Source: Port of Los Angeles"
There is also a busy fish market here, but you have to be ready to buy when it opens, because the hours are curtailed. Oh, and you have to be here at 3am too: (
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Not Sleeping With the Fishes: The San Pedro Fish Market
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2009 AT 10:13 A.M. BY WILLY BLACKMORE
Waking up at five o'clock is not the greatest way to start a Saturday morning. And as impressive as the hills of Palos Verdes may be in the light of day, in the pre-dawn hours they are obscured by the fog that often stays socked in their shadow, blurring the edges of the docks, buildings, ships and water of the Port of Los Angeles. But if you love to eat fish, you want to be here on a Saturday morning, sometime between the hours of 3:30 and 7:30, when the San Pedro fish markets, wholesale only every other day of the week, are open to the public. A long, pink building at the dead end of 22nd Street houses a number of vendors, the entrance to each opening up on a loading dock, large bins of complimentary crushed ice on hand for packing you purchase for the trip home.
Inside each seller's stall, the crowd is surprisingly thick for so early in the morning, with a broad range of ages and races picking through boxes of live crabs, scooping up handfuls of sweet-smelling shrimp or checking the gills, eyes and sizes of a variety of whole fish--from smaller, single-serving species like mackerel or red snapper to impressively large tuna, mahi-mahi and salmon.
Some frozen filets are available and icy lobster tails, but with the blood-red gills, clear eyes and shimmering skin of the fresh fish on hand, there's no contest between the fresh catch and those icy protein blocks. Prices are astonishingly low too--$2 to $3 a pound for whole tuna or salmon, with sardines and mackerel available for prices closer to a $1 a pound.
After a whole fish has been weighed and paid for, scaling, gutting and filleting can be done by the capable knives (and band saw) wielded at the gutting and cleaning stations each vendor has. This is far from the delicate grace of breaking down whole fish that you may have seen on Top Chef or other food TV shows--in fact, many opt for a few rapid cuts on a fast-whirring band saw, reducing a whole fish into so many steaks in a matter of seconds. Options are varied though, and any number of servings, skin on or off--or just a whole fish gutted and scaled--can be had, bones and head optional.
Now that Pacific spiny lobster season has opened, check the markets for the local crustaceans.
San Pedro Fish Companies, located at the end of 22nd St, San Pedro
Open to the public every Saturday from 3:30 AM - 7:30 AM?