APTOS — For nearly a century, one object has undoubtedly caught the eyes of anyone who has visited Seacliff State Beach: The Cement Ship permanently grounded and now largely submerged in the waters off the beach’s shores.
Looking today like the ghost of a ship that once was, mostly crumbling and serving as a perch for seabirds, this vessel has a long history. It was constructed during World War I as the SS Palo Alto but launched too late to serve in that conflict and was mothballed for a decade until it found a new home off Seacliff, remaining a source of fascination for decades and even outliving the pier that provided access to it.
The year the SS Palo Alto found its new permanent home has been chronicled in a new noir fiction novel by Mark Marinovich titled “Seacliff Park.” With themes of corruption, criminal activity and pursuing the American dream, the book is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.
“Seacliff Park” is the third novel for Marinovich, who previously authored “The White Boats” and “A Boutique Safari,” and has been a writer for 50 years and an avid reader for even longer, absorbing the works of John Steinbeck and Mark Twain.
“I’ve always been a reader,” he said. “I started reading at a very young age. I would have spells of being fascinated by one writer or another and read everything they ever wrote, including their letters and personal papers.”
Marinovich parlayed that love of writing into a journalism career — where he served as an arts correspondent for the Sentinel in the ’80s — but also has written novels, screenplays and “fell into an accidental marketing career,” which included an eight-year stint as a senior copywriter for eBay. After taking a sabbatical for a year where he got to do things he had been putting off, Marinovich broke his arm in a fall in January.
“I was confined to a chair for four months,” he said. “I couldn’t lie down, and I couldn’t sleep. The pain was so intense.”
Marinovich determined he would need to do something constructive as he underwent rehabilitation, and he decided to write another book. He recalled his teens when he went fishing on the SS Palo Alto and decided its history could make for a good novel.
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“I have great familiarity with that region and the lore and legends surrounding the ship,” he said. “I just decided to see what I could concoct, and 10 months later, I had a 500-page draft and the rest is publishing history.”
“Seacliff Park” is set in 1929 as young couple Charlie and Lily have just gotten married and are visiting the Santa Cruz area from Reno, Nevada, when Lily’s father, Howard, announces plans to construct a family amusement park atop the SS Palo Alto. However, bootleggers have installed a speakeasy on the ship, prompting a battle between rival crime syndicates.
Marinovich said “Seacliff Park” was the most fun he’s had writing a book.
“My previous novels concerned human impacts on the natural environment,” he said. “In this book, I just decided to have a good time. I enjoy reading in the thriller genre, and I just decided to do something surrounding the Cement Ship.”
Marinovich said it was fascinating diving into the history of the SS Palo Alto. It was constructed out of reinforced concrete by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Co. at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Oakland at a time when America was fighting in World War I. By the time the Palo Alto had its maiden voyage in May 1919, the war had been over for six months, so its services were not needed. The ship was mothballed in Oakland and purchased by the Seacliff Amusement Corporation and towed to Seacliff Beach in 1929.
The SS Palo Alto saw new life as an amusement ship with a restaurant, heated swimming pool and a ballroom that attracted big name bandleaders like Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.
However, the ship’s status as an entertainment center was short-lived, as the Great Depression, bankruptcy of Seacliff Amusement, and storms in the area led to the ship being sold to the California State Parks Department for $1. For decades, visitors could walk on the ship and even fish from it, but damage over the years led to cycles of closing to public access and retrofitting. It sustained significant damage in the 2017 and 2023 storms, the latter of which resulted in the permanent demolition of the 93-year-old pier after crews determined it was nearing collapse in the wake of the storms. The ship remains, although it is closed to the public with much of the vessel underwater; primarily a haven for birds, starfish and urchins.
Marinovich, who received a lot of information from the Seacliff Visitors Center, said one of the most fascinating things about the Cement Ship is that it isn’t made of cement at all. It was built out of concrete because steel was in short supply during World War I.
“German U-boats left, right and center, so they had to come up with a cheap alternative,” he said.
Marinovich also did research on other details of the era, right down to the fashion and automobiles that were common in 1929.
“This writing was two parts research and one part writing,” he said. “I had time because I was confined to a chair for months.”
Marinovich credited ChatGPT with coming up with some of the historical details, although he said the prose is entirely his. While most writers have outlines, Marinovich does his work without one.
“I’ve written so many creative works for such a long period of time, I do not write with an outline, nor do I know the end of my story when I start,” he said. “The most fun thing for me was bringing characters to life and following them where they led me.”
Marinovich is pleased with the reviews he has gotten on Amazon and Goodreads, which mostly have yielded four and five stars. While he does not anticipate selling “Seacliff Park” in local bookstores, he does hope it will be sold at the Seacliff Visitors Center as an educational tool.
“The book is thoroughly researched and reveals a lot of information about the ship that you wouldn’t ordinarily find,” he said.
“Seacliff Park” is available on Amazon. For information on the book, go to SeacliffParkNovel.com.
