Skygate

This is a statue on the Embarcadero called "Skygate" by the sculptor Roger Barr, done in 1985.  The thing that caught my eye was the text that said that this sculpture is dedicated to Eric Hoffer - "Longshoreman, Poet, and Philosopher."  Hoffer was born in the Bronx, and went blind when he was seven, and his eyesight returned at age fifteen, but then his mother and father died.  He then took a bus to California and lived on skid row for ten years, and later worked as a longshoreman on the docks in San Francisco.  Hoffer was influenced by his modest roots and working-class surroundings, seeing in it vast human potential.