Friday, October 12, 2007

Now they don't want to offend



They broke ground for the new buildings in 1967 and their appearance had gone unnoticed by the public for decades. Now, with the widespread use of computers and the maps they generate, the word is out.

The Navy now plans to "fix" the design they were aware of back at the groundbreaking with approximately $600,000 worth of rooftop adjustments and camouflage landscaping on the barracks at the Naval Base Coronado near San Diego CA. It seems that people have now noticed that the buildings form a swastika in aerial views available on Google Earth.

Navy officials state that they became aware of the design shortly after the groundbreaking but they felt that because it was in a no-fly zone that was off-limits to commercial airlines, people wouldn't notice it. They added that they didn't feel that there was a reason to redo the occupied buildings because of it back then.

The Anti-Defamation League in San Diego has objected to the shape of the buildings and told the Navy that it was an incredibly shape for a structure on a military base. They have added that they praised the Navy for recognizing the problem and doing the "right thing" in planning to fix it.

I am glad that they are finally going to fix the shape of the buildings but I have to wonder why it took some 40 years to do so. They stated that they were aware of the way it would look from the air back in 1967 but does that mean that noone looked at the plans that had been drafted and not seen the resemblence then? I can understand penny pinching and not wanting to change the plans after construction began but there had to be someone who saw before then that they were building a giant swastika on the base.

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