[CPEO-MEF] CLOSURE, PRESERVATION: "The story of the Hunters Point [CA] crane’s giant arch — and its nuclear secret"

[Lenny Siegel]

The story of the Hunters Point crane’s giant arch — and its nuclear secret

By Peter Hartlaub
San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
February 20, 2023

The Hunters Point crane has spent most of its life as one of the underrated landmarks of the Bay Area.

Visible from the East Bay, Peninsula and parts of San Francisco, the giant gantry crane measures 380 feet high with a red and white-striped arch at the top (greatly faded over time). It’s one of the most visible manufactured structures in the Bay Area — arguably in third place behind Sutro Tower and the Bay Bridge.

But lost in time is what the crane was used for — and specifically why it has that defining arch. The arch was quietly built relatively late in the crane’s working life, and used to test-launch hydrogen bomb-tipped missiles.

The crane was conceived during World War II, when the Bay Area had three bustling Navy shipyards in Vallejo, Alameda and the Bayview district of San Francisco. Chronicle reporter J. Campbell Bruce was invited for the first test of the crane on Dec. 17, 1947, a circus atmosphere that ended with dozens of journalists watching the crane settle a house-size concrete block on a chicken-size egg.

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For the entire article, see
https://www.sfchronicle.com/vault/article/hunters-point-crane-nuclear-secret-17791233.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=share-by-email&utm_medium=email

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel at cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)