San Francisco - Alison Bing [69]
For the duration of WWII, the Presidio became a key base of operations for the Allied Pacific campaign and a port of call for sailors and soldiers dispatched here for R&R in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. The Presidio base continued to be in use during the Cold War as a bulwark against communism across the Pacific in China, Korea and Vietnam, despite widespread public antipathy towards McCarthyism in San Francisco. In 1960 thousands of locals protested the interrogations of UC Berkeley professors and students by McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee, which was disrupted by the first-ever sit-in and abruptly concluded its proceedings in City Hall, never to return. But the Cold War, too, had its casualties. The fates of many veterans can be seen in the veterans hospital complex in the Presidio, not to mention Downtown, where a recent survey indicated that veterans account for at least half the entrenched homeless population.
In 1996 the Presidio was repurposed as public parkland, and most of the military buildings have since been turned over to nonprofits, low-income housing and Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas. He was granted special dispensation to move his for-profit Industrial Light & Magic special-effects production studio here, with the promise of new jobs, then decided to offshore most of the work anyway. Only some off-limits front offices, a private screening room and a bronze Yoda statue remain out front.
GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE Map
415-556-1693 Fri-Mon; www.goldengate.org; Fort Point Lookout Marine Dr; southbound car $6, car pools (3 or more passengers) admission free btwn 5-9am & 4-6pm; 28, 29, Golden Gate Transit buses;
Strange but true: the elegant suspension bridge painted a signature shade called ‘International Orange’ was almost nixed by the navy in favor of concrete pylons and yellow stripes. Joseph B Strauss correctly gets heaps of praise as the engineering mastermind behind this marvel, but without the aesthetic intervention of architects Gertrude and Irving Murrow and the incredibly quick work of daredevil workers, this 1937 landmark might have been just another traffic bottleneck.
The project first proposed in a proclamation by beloved local eccentric Emperor Norton in the 19th century began to become a reality in the 20th, when ferries began to seem impractical to accommodate traffic to and from the North Bay. The War Department didn’t want to take any chances with the ships passing through the Golden Gate, so safety and solidity were its primary goals – but a green light was given to the counterproposal by Strauss and the Murrows for a subtler deco span and color that harmonized with the natural environment. Before the War Department could insist on an eyesore, laborers dove into the treacherous riptides of the bay and got the bridge underway in 1933. Just four years later workers balanced atop swaying cables to complete what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world at nearly 2 miles long, and the 746ft suspension towers were higher than any construction west of New York.
* * *
CROSSING THE BRIDGE
Bike it – follow the 49-Mile Dr signs along Lincoln Blvd through the Presidio to the parking lot right before the toll plaza. Beyond the lot is a paved bike path, which begins just past a sign showing a map of Fort Point; it takes you under the bridge and around to the sidewalk on the westbound side, which is reserved for bikes only. You can cross on bike 24 hours a day.
Gear up and hoof it – walking along the eastern sidewalk in street clothes can be downright unpleasant, since wind and exhaust fumes tend to detract from the natural beauty, and the Pacific can only be glimpsed through traffic. But hardy walkers who come prepared in windbreakers