“Bowl For Health”, Treasure Island, San Francisco, CA, 2007.
Government-issue pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/2123765265
#photography
This was captured with a BetterLight scanning digital back and Nikkor 90mm lens on a Sinar P 4x5 camera.
This now-demolished bowling alley was part of the Treasure Island Naval Station, closed about 15 years earlier and then just starting to be redeveloped (a process that’s been slowed by serious environmental contamination).
The composition emphasizes the simple lines of the structure and the isolated, rather desolate setting.
San Francisco’s Treasure Island is a weird place. An artificial island built adjacent to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the Bay Bridge, it initially hosted the 1939 World’s fair, with plans to then use it for the city’s main airport. At the start of WW II, the US government appropriated it for use as a Naval station. After the Cold War, the government returned the island to the city. It was extensively contaminated by radioactive waste from decontamination training conducted on the island.
By now many, though not all, of the structures from the island’s military era have been demolished (including the bowling alley in the photo). Environmental remediation is proceeding slowly.
A small community of mostly low-income families live in the island’s housing, and some of the larger buildings are used as sound stages for film production and related industries.
@mattblaze@federate.social it used to not be so low income, i knew a few people who lived out there many years ago, but as they started remediating it became obvious that it was a dangerous place to live, and then men in bunny suits might show up and tell you not to dig in your garden. and so, it became poor and black because that’s still how america do. bowl for health indeed.
@quinn The Bay Area has a remarkable density of former WWII-era military bases that turned out to be radioactive.
@mattblaze@federate.social and chip fab lands that are incredibly carcinogenic. it is unironically one of the most dangerously polluted places on earth, but it’s actually manageable. as long as the water table never rises.
@mattblaze@federate.social disembowled.
@mattblaze@federate.social have you been out there recently? It’s now mostly a construction site for ~10 story apartment buildings and is trying to go up market. (It actually looks pretty good.)
@crawshaw So isolated though.
@mattblaze@federate.social agreed, it needs some commercial space to bring it to life. The tiny ferry from sf is fast and fun, maybe there’s an opportunity to build things that are too expensive for SF proper.
