A pavement memorial outside San Francisco’s Longshoremen’s Hall commemorates Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise, killed during Bloody Thursday in 1934.
Outside the ILWU Local 10 Longshoremen’s Hall in San Francisco, I found history written directly onto the pavement.
The two white outlines represent Howard Sperry, a longshoreman, and Nicholas “Nick” Bordoise, a marine cook. Both men were shot by police on July 5, 1934, during the West Coast waterfront strike—a day remembered by dockworkers as Bloody Thursday. Their deaths helped transform a labour dispute into a defining moment in American union history. Thousands later joined a funeral procession through San Francisco, and the events contributed to the citywide general strike that followed.
I photographed the memorial from above, allowing the outlines, names and uncompromising words to fill the frame. There is no monument separating the viewer from the message—only concrete, paint and the memory of two lives lost. Buildings preserve history in archives. Sometimes the pavement remembers it more directly.
- Date
- 2026-01-01