[CPEO-MEF] PRESERVATION, REUSE: "History fades at Alameda Point" (CA)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

THE BIG STORY: History fades at Alameda Point

Michele Ellson
Island of Alameda (CA)
April 28, 2011

Dick Rutter expertly guides his Jeep Grand Cherokee through the gray  
maze of streets on Alameda Point, and each turn yields fresh details  
that bring the silent, moldering buildings that line those streets  
back to life.

Here are the Bachelor Officers Quarters, where Rutter lived for three  
years in the early 1970s when he was a Navy navigator; further along  
the route is the control tower where he worked 24-hour watches, and  
enjoyed sunrises and sunsets. Another turn yields the base’s old church.

"I went to too many funerals in this building," Rutter intones, as he  
pushes the aging Cherokee against a thick wind on a blustery February  
day.

For the last decade, the architect and preservationist has been on a  
final mission at the former Naval Air Station: He’s trying to save  
dozens of Alameda Point’s historic buildings from the wrecking ball,  
including some that Rutter said offer examples of Navy buildings that  
were once prevalent across the globe but are now only still standing  
on the former base. But Rutter’s efforts to save and reuse the base’s  
historic Art Deco and Streamline Moderne buildings have been  
complicated by the city’s ongoing inability to develop the Point, or  
even to come up with a generally accepted plan for moving forward.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.theislandofalameda.com/2011/04/the-big-story-history-fades- 
at-alameda-point/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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