Let's take this image as a case study.
I was introduced to China Beach as a teenager. My parents would take me to art classes in San Francisco. My art teacher lived and lives close to China Beach. Some weekends we would have extra time to take a walk out there.
It always struck me as melancholy and forbidding... an austere beauty. That was in the late 80's.
In 2010 I went for my first swim there. Boy, was it like going into the land of the pterodactyls but oddly not that far from a bustling San Francisco.