The Bay Area Longshoremen's Memorial Association (BALMA) owns and maintains the William "Bill" Chester Memorial Hiring Hall and the Administration Building. The building is a memorial to the longshoremen of the San Francisco, Bay Area, to those who have passed, to those who work on the waterfront today and to those who will come after us. It is monument to all the longshoremen up and down the West Coast and in Canada and Hawaii who have joined together in solid unity and created our present strength. It is a memorial to the union which has made possible the better life enjoyed by longshoremen and to its principles of unity and rank and file democracy.

BALMA is a non-profit organization that participates in community outreach, supports charitable organizations in the community and supports it's membership. BALMA also organizes the Bloody Thursday Memorial and the Children's Christmas Party for the ILWU Local 10 membership.

Each year, BALMA awards approximately $25,000 in scholarships to the dependents of ILWU Local 10 Class A members. BALMA uses 100% of the proceeds of the sales of promotional merchandise to fund the scholarship program.

FRANK CRESCI PLAZA
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI | BY BENIAMINO BUFANO

This heroic statue of the patron Saint of St. Francis de la Varenne was carved in Paris in 1926-1928 out of a 20-ton block of granite, by the great Italian sculptor, Beniamino “Benny” Bufano. It remained unseen in a warehouse there for 27 years, and was transported to San Francisco in 1955. The magnificent work, called by English critic, Roger Frye, “the most significant piece of art in 500 years” rested temporarily in three other locations in the Bay Area until December 1962, when the San Francisco Bay Area Longshoremen’s Memorial Association offered it a permanent haven with a special park and fountain to surround it on the grounds of its architecturally unique building near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. The building serves the dispatching and office needs of Local 10 of the International Longshoremen’s Warehouse Union since 1958.

In 2016, the plaza was dedicated to Emeritus President Frank Cresci, President of the Bay Area Longshoremen’s Memorial Association from 1986-2014. A longshoreman himself, he was dedicated to the labor movement, the ILWU and all labor unions. Because of his family’s longtime connection to the Waterfront, he was an invaluable resource for the history of San Francisco dockworkers and fishermen. His humanitarian efforts to his union brothers and sisters were endless; always offering a lending hand, President Frank Cresci mentored and guided generations after him.

President Frank Cresci was a leader, mentor, historian and friend.