Hunters Point Shipyard Crane Becomes a Light and Sound Artwork on Four October Nights

The giant gantry crane at the Hunters Point Shipyard will become a 40-minute light, sound and projection piece on four October nights. CRANE, produced by the Shipyard Trust for the Arts (STAR), runs October 9, 10, 16 and 17, 2026, with in-person watch parties in the Bayview on three of those nights and a free livestream on all four.

What CRANE is

The project calls itself “a temporary monument in five movements.” STAR describes it as a large-scale public artwork combining illumination, original music and live performance, built around the history of the shipyard and Bayview Hunters Point. The creative team listed on the STAR site is Ian Winters (video), Evelyn Ficarra (composer), Elaine Buckholtz (lighting), Stacey Carter (history and outreach) and William Rhodes (outreach). The project’s companion site carries soundscape chapters drawn from shipyard archives and interviews with former workers.

The crane itself stands nearly 500 feet tall. It was completed at the shipyard in 1947 by the American Bridge Company to lift gun turrets off battleships, and the Navy closed the shipyard in 1994. Mission Local reports it could once lift 630 tons.

Dates, times and tickets

Each performance runs from 8pm to 8:40pm, according to STAR. On October 16 and 17 the crane stays lit until 9:15pm.

• Friday, October 9 (opening night): watch party at Zaccho Dance Theatre, 1777 Yosemite Ave., Suite 330. Doors at 7pm, live choir at 7:45pm. Tickets are $25, or $10 for residents of the 94124 ZIP code.
• Saturday, October 10: livestream only.
• Friday, October 16 and Saturday, October 17: watch parties at Building 101, 451 Galvez Ave., inside the shipyard, during the shipyard’s open studios weekend. Doors at 5:30pm. Tickets run from $10 (94124 community price) to $75. The closing night on October 17 includes a live choir.
• Livestream: free on all four nights, with the link posted at crane.video.

Funders listed by STAR are the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Planning around Fleet Week

The opening weekend overlaps with Fleet Week (October 6 to 12), when the Blue Angels fly over the northern waterfront. CRANE’s watch parties are on the opposite side of the city in the Bayview. For the rest of the month’s events, see our guide to things to do in San Francisco in October 2026.

Sources: Shipyard Trust for the Arts, CRANE event page; crane.video; Mission Local (September 29, 2026); Wikipedia, Hunters Point Naval Shipyard (crane history).

Photo: Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.