CORONADO, Calif., — The U.S. Navy has decided to spend as much as $600,000 for landscaping and architectural modifications to obscure the fact that one its building complexes looks like a swastika from the air.
The four L-shaped buildings, constructed in the late 1960s, are part of the amphibious base at Coronado and serve as barracks for Seabees.
From the ground and from inside nearby buildings, the controversial shape cannot be seen. Nor are there any civilian or military landing patterns that provide such a view to airline passengers.
But once people began looking at satellite images from Google Earth, they started commenting about on blogs and websites about how much the buildings resembled the symbol used by the Nazis.
Who was it said that bad press is better than no press at all?
They were wrong.
You guess the building.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=32.675072,-117.158246&spn=0.005879,0.009077&t=h&z=17&om=1
Also, guess which Silicon Valley based company lead to this decision.
This has been apparent for years to anyone who looked at a map of the base. Surprised it took so long for someone to get “energized” about it.
Another example of a design that probably made good sense from an engineering standpoint that failed the PAO test.
They could just say that they’re celibrating our native american heritage.
Didn’t anyone ever look at a blueprint?
Frankly, I don’t see it, but $600,000??!?!!?? Doesn’t look like anything a little camoflague netting can’t fix. Give the place that “lived-in” look and lend an air of home for them. I mean, they’re Seabees after all.
SJBill – if you slide over to NAS North Island, the Nimitz is there. I wish I could get in just a bit closer to see what is going on by the adjustable sheaves and impact pads on the starboard side. The shadow of the island doesn’t help.
I vote for Craig… I have a genuine, old Navajo rug that has four swasticas on it. Although the symbol has been mis-used by Hitler’s Germany, it’s history goes back 3,000 years. Records of it’s use pre-date the Egyptian ankh; it’s also been found on relics dating back to Troy.
$600,000 to camoflage a poor choice of design? Isn’t there some more pressing need for the money?
[...] Neptunus Lex – Oops [...]
I have a copy of Kipling’s poems printed in the ’20s which is crumbling away as I type, and has the swastika on the cover. Not only that, but I seem to recall reading that some ancient synagogues had swastikas as part of their mosaic floor decorations.
Damn’ Nazis! This is why we can’t have nice things! (See Encyclopedia Dramatica, but be warned afore-like that they’re right rude, there.)
[...] of the design and the relation to all things Islamic are way beyond sheer coincidence. Unlike the case of the Navy barracks in San Diego, we have the opportunity to possible stop the construction of a site that would honor those who did [...]
We have a war going on and we’re worrying about how these buildings look. I understand people are offended by this accident in the building design and I don’t get why it wasn’t caught in blueprint development, but I have to sit here and wonder how much kevlar 600K can buy our troops, instead of attempting to cover something that has been there for nearly 50 years and will probably just look like a swastika that’s been modified.
From all appearances, the Navy is trying to clean up the popular visiting site on Google maps and Google Earth. Who give a ratza$$ what it looks like from ground level or from a passing aircraft.
That said, $600kbucks is being earmarked to clean up a photo that may have been taken four years ago (judging from when Nimitz may have had that pierside workup, backawaze).
What if the Googleirs never change the image in theor photo database, or if they wait another five to ten years.
Hear that flushing sound?
I don’t think its a big deal at all – those BEQs are 40 years old, it wasn’t intentional, so I don’t see the problem.
As far as the swastika, I have a bronze Buddha incense burner, about 5 inches tall that I brought back with me from Misawa Japan. Swastikas all around the base that Buddha is sitting on…