Hangar One under threat

Hangar One's massive rib-cage-like doors were designed to split open to accommodate aircraft of giant proportions like the U.S.S. Macon airship. But for the first time since the hangar's construction in 1933, a simple breeze can now pass through its skeleton and tickle the vast heart inside.

In the past four months, construction crews have peeled off 90 percent of the hangar's south face, panel by panel, leaving the 198-foot-high Naval Historic Monument naked as a jaybird to thousands of motorists driving past on U.S. Highway 101. . .

The Navy is overseeing the "de-skinning" of the hangar, a process that began in spring and will remove and dispose of the structure's corrugated metal walls, which are tainted by lead paint, asbestos and PCBs. By the time the project is completed next spring, the hangar -- almost the length of four football fields and the width of one -- will literally be a skeleton of its former self. . .

After the Navy removes the hangar's siding, NASA is responsible for its re-skinning, but federal funds for the project are still in limbo, and a bitter battle between hangar preservationists and those in favor of complete demolition is far from settled.

Posted by David on October 20, 2011 8:39 PM