Alameda Tutors

About Alameda

Crab Cove, in Alameda, California, is familiar to thousands of families and schoolchildren in the Bay Area. The cove is home to the Crab Cove Visitor Center, where visitors learn about the ecology of San Francisco Bay and the importance of preserving it. The facility features an 800-gallon aquarium, interactive stations and exhibits, the Old Wharf classroom, and a protected estuarine marine reserve. Alameda tutors and teachers and their students visit the center by the droves to learn about marine life—a hands-on way to get science tutoring in Alameda.

Coney Island of the West
Crab Cove’s identity has changed drastically over the years. In the late 1880s, it was a popular beach resort for wealthy Americans. In 1917, a beachfront amusement park opened. Neptune Beach, considered the “Coney Island of the West,” offered much for visitors to enjoy: the ocean-view Whoopee Rollercoaster, a hand-carved carousel, a Ferris wheel, large swimming pools with fountains and diving platforms, picnic areas and barbecue pits, a clubhouse for dancing, and a strip of sandy beach for sunbathing. Prize-fights, professional baseball games, and beauty contests were regularly held at Neptune Beach.

Neptune Beach was purchased in 1923 by the Strehlow family, who filled in a section of the Bay and added the roller coaster and the second Olympic-sized swimming pool. The Strehlows hosted many swim competitions in the two pools. Both Johnny Weissmuller, an Olympic swimmer who later played Tarzan in twelve motion pictures, and health nut Jack LaLanne competed there. Neptune Beach was also the site of the annual fourteen-mile “Around the Island Swim” competition.

The Strehlows contracted with a local confectioner to create treats unique to Neptune Beach. Snow cones and popsicles were introduced to the region there. Celluloid versions of Kewpie dolls, dressed in hand-sewn dresses, were given as prizes for winning carnival games.

Admission to the park was a dime, but good swimmers and adventurous waders could avoid paying by swimming around the fence. Once the Bay Bridge was completed, people began traveling in cars away from the cities and taking the train less. With the onset of the Great Depression, attendance went down markedly, and Neptune Beach finally went bankrupt and closed in 1939. Most of the props and structures, including the carnival rides, were auctioned off. The carousel was sold to Playland at the Beach in San Francisco.

After Neptune Beach became dormant, the land was purchased by the military and became the site of the U.S. Maritime Service Officer’s School. Here, merchant engineers and deck officers were trained to operate the Liberty ships that were being built in Alameda and Richmond at the Kaiser shipyards. The facility had twenty buildings, all named after military ships, and 2,000 men per year graduated from the four-month program.

When the school was no longer needed, the State of California, City of Alameda, and East Bay Regional Park District began to develop the shoreline park that now includes Crab Cove.