Ok, so I've lived in the bay area now for almost 5 years, and in San Francisco itself for over 3... and I've always wondered about this really large red platform like object sitting in the bay at Hunter's Point near Candlestick/3-COM park. I was finally able to figure out what it was by asking on tuna (sorta silicon valley/west coast UIUC ECE/CS alumni group...) and got an answer... its not a platform, its a crane, an 880 ton crane to be precise, part of the Hunters Point Shipyard, and apparently the largest crane this side of the Mississippi. Apparently, there are some slight EPA problems at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Yeach. A picture of the yard (converted from a MIL PDF). Ah, here are a bunch of old photos of the shipyard [1] & [2] including this one that might be the crane, and this one that might be the crane being built. The first one seems to have a picture of some state/federal like building super-imposed, probably for size perspective...