Alameda Point

News

HISTORIC HEART BEATS AT ALAMEDA POINT

By Dennis Evanosky - Alameda Sun - September 26, 2008

Local History

One after another, maps of Alameda Point flashed across the screen at Sept. 9's City Council meeting as Peter Calthorpe of Calthorpe Associates explained SunCal's plans for bringing the western tip of the Island City into the 21st century.

SunCal's homes and retail shops are but the latest layer of development at "The Point," as today's Alamedans are wont to describe the "old" Naval Air Station, a place where the past watches silently to learn its fate.

"The year 1941 sees a new city-within-a-city on what once were tidelands," says Alameda - The Island City, a government-funded history written in 1941 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Writer's Program.

The WPA's description of the 20th-century development echoes the enthusiasm the council heard from Calthorpe on Sept. 9. "The Administration Building faces the main entrance across a park leading from the gate," the writers reported. "At the right is a sweep of long, streamlined buildings housing the station's recreation hall, offices, barbershop, stores and barracks." Floodlights bathed the building's exteriors at night.

The 1941 writers described the barracks as "light and airy, many-windowed, with accommodations for 288 men to a building, 144 to a floor." Three nearby mess halls can serve meals to 1,500 to 2,000 men per hour; a cafeteria "assures (civil service) personnel nutritious and appetizing meals cooked in a modern galley, complete in every detail."

Nestled just to the left of the station's main gate are "21 sets of officer's quarters, 13 sets of non-commissioned bachelor quarters and bachelor officer's quarters with accommodations for 350."

A clubhouse for officers (today's O Club) is in process of construction, the report says. A large movie theater provides entertainment, while a firehouse and dispensary protect the station and its inhabitants. Trees that adorned Treasure Island during the 1939 World's Fair were uprooted and planted on the base.

Then the WPA writers got down to business; a business that everyone involved in laying the latest layer of history at Alameda Point must honor and respect. "Beyond the barracks are the hangars for land planes, the original specifications providing space for eight," the report says. "An assembling and repair building covering two and three-fourths acres is equipped with every machine and tool necessary for the repairing of planes."

Alameda Air Station went into commission on Nov. 1, 1940, with 16 officers, 390 enlisted men, a marine guard of one officer and 76 enlisted men, and some 200 civil service employees. In July 1941, there were about 750 enlisted men, 750 civil service men, and about 1,000 contract workers. By 1942, the number of officers is to be increased to 300; enlisted men to 4.500, civilians to 2,000 - a total of 6,800 on active duty.

"On the east side, a dock stretches to the south for 725 feet, then veers southwest another 1,000 feet," according to the report. "Water alongside the dock is 30 feet deep, providing safe berthing for ocean-going ships, which included the USS Hornet (CV-8).

Sailors here loaded USS Hornet with the 16 B-25s that would take part in the April 18, 1942, Doolittle Raid, the first air raid by the United States to strike Japan.

By the end of 1943, 11,450 Americans including 450 officers, 8,000 enlisted men and 2,000 civilians were serving here.

Alameda Naval Air Station served our country for another 54 years; the federal government closed the station on April 25, 1997. Today "Alameda Point" waits as we apply the next layer of history.