[HN Gopher] There's a mansion hidden directly under the Bay Bridge
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       There's a mansion hidden directly under the Bay Bridge
        
       Author : thunderbong
       Score  : 150 points
       Date   : 2023-05-04 09:25 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.sfgate.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.sfgate.com)
        
       | bombcar wrote:
       | Seems like the perfect place for a museum, tbh.
        
         | dontblink wrote:
         | Could be one about WW2 actually!
        
         | sidewndr46 wrote:
         | There's already a significant museum in Nimitz's hometown:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_the_Pacific...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | startupsfail wrote:
       | Cars really should be put underground. Electric cars going in
       | tunnels, not gasoline cars spewing the exhaust from the top of
       | the bridge.
       | 
       | ... _The mansion's bright white siding is turning dull and black
       | from car exhaust._ ...
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | I'm all for that, if you're able to pay for it!
         | 
         | Sadly, boring tunnels is a teensy bit more expensive than
         | paving roads... :(
        
           | startupsfail wrote:
           | Every bit helps. If you look at the Central Expressway (Bay
           | Area) and compare it to Lawrence Expressway. Lawrence sits
           | above, goes via an overpass and generates a lot of noise.
           | Central, on the other hand had been lowered down. And lets
           | smaller roads to pass over it. A lot less noise.
        
         | eastbound wrote:
         | It puts the fun into "In 2000 we'll have flying cars" when the
         | whole XXth century was spent building highways and ramps that
         | were higher and higher into the air, and the whole XXIth will
         | be spent trying to put them underground. The real futurist
         | landscape is a city like Lyon in France, or Amsterdam, where
         | cars are put away and we walk or bike to work.
        
           | startupsfail wrote:
           | Flying cars is a dream of baby boomers. To everyone else,
           | this is a nightmarish scenario of unending noise and exhaust
           | spewing from these baby boomers flying over the residential
           | areas.
        
           | tomrod wrote:
           | We have plenty of flying cars today thanks to our crumbling
           | infrastructure! It's that infernal hard stop at the end
           | that's the problem. /s
        
         | fakedang wrote:
         | Or, you know, shift the entire building away, brick by brick,
         | if it's historically important for the city?
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | It takes a decade and many billions of dollars to dig a single
         | tunnel in most cities in this country. So best of luck with
         | your plan..
        
           | RC_ITR wrote:
           | It's an interesting chicken and egg problem in America.
           | 
           | Have people lost the will to think big because others before
           | them have failed, or do people assume that they will fail
           | because they don't think big.
           | 
           | I guess the asset-light strategy works sometimes (a lot of
           | cities are regretting mass transit investments post-
           | pandemic), but it sure doesn't seem to lead to better quality
           | of life.
        
           | startupsfail wrote:
           | I understand that the price of a tunnel is somewhat
           | comparable to the bridge.
        
             | ink_13 wrote:
             | You are misinformed. Consider the engineering challenges
             | alone.
        
       | virtualwhys wrote:
       | FTA, $500 per day to rent an historic mansion overlooking the bay
       | (i.e. before the bridge obstruction)
       | 
       | I have a family wedding to attend back east this autumn and we're
       | looking at around that (before "service fees" and taxes) to sleep
       | 5 out in the sticks of New Hampshire -- short-term housing has
       | truly gotten out of hand, basically everywhere.
        
         | iLoveOncall wrote:
         | Yeah Airbnb has become so outrageously expensive and is so much
         | less convenient than a hotel that it's almost never worth it
         | anymore, it's crazy.
        
           | kaiwen1 wrote:
           | Negotiate if you're staying for a month or more. I frequently
           | get prices that are less than half the asking price.
        
           | switchbak wrote:
           | Things must be different here (BC, Canada). I can't think of
           | why I'd ever rent a hotel room when AirBnB's are usually a
           | similar price and way more comfortable (usually).
           | 
           | Unless I had a worry about cancellations I suppose.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | AirBnB is like the proverbial curled girl:
             | 
             | When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she
             | was bad she was horrid.
        
           | dmd wrote:
           | I have the exact opposite experience -- as someone who always
           | wants two adjoining rooms (for kids). Doing that in a hotel
           | tends to cost as much as 3 times what an Airbnb would cost,
           | and the airbnb is more comfortable. You just need to actually
           | read reviews.
        
             | extr wrote:
             | Yeah what I've found with Airbnb is these days you need to
             | optimize way harder for host quality/reviews and less for
             | your actual preference in terms of location, price,
             | furnishings. If the place has a 4.95, you will get what you
             | pay for. 4.5-4.8 = there many be some hiccups. < 4.5 you
             | might as well go to Vegas and put the money on black.
        
           | r00fus wrote:
           | It's sad because AirBnB has also similarly shrunk the "suite"
           | class of room that we as a 5 person family need. So we're
           | forced into using AirBnB/VRBO because hotels only offer 2+2
           | (and most rental sites don't let you even look for 5 person
           | rooms). Ugh.
        
             | bastardoperator wrote:
             | I'm trying to book multiple(4) rooms for 9 people and most
             | places I've searched just don't seem to support the idea of
             | a group traveling. I don't want to call every place, I'm
             | just trying to shop.
        
             | ptudan wrote:
             | Just search for 4. You're almost never going to get in
             | trouble for sleeping 2 adults and 3 kids in a hotel room
             | for 4.
        
         | stdbrouw wrote:
         | They mention this was before the Loma Prieta earthquake which
         | was in 1989; if we take inflation from 1980 to now into account
         | that'd be $1600-1900 today. Probably still good value, esp.
         | given the view, but I guess it does depend on how it was
         | furnished at the time.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | nchudleigh wrote:
       | The ads on this site are unbearable on mobile.
        
         | onychomys wrote:
         | Brave blocks ads natively in their mobile browser, you should
         | give them a shot.
        
           | manquer wrote:
           | Many sites are using adblocker blockers (including this one)
           | 
           | don't know about Brave but mblock origin fails for this site
           | on Firefox mobile on iOS
        
             | KronisLV wrote:
             | > don't know about Brave but mblock origin fails for this
             | site on Firefox mobile on iOS
             | 
             | uBlock Origin with Firefox on the desktop seems to work for
             | me, though there probably are a few differences between
             | mobile and desktop.
        
           | tomrod wrote:
           | There is a lot I don't like about Brave, but I can't fault
           | them for having the best mobile app on market (for me).
           | 
           | Why not Firefox? Bad redesign release a few years back and
           | now discernible way to change the accessibility so it holds
           | always. Old.reddit text is too small to be read no matter
           | what I've tried.
           | 
           | None of the other browsers on Android I've found to be worth
           | the time.
        
       | prepend wrote:
       | This seems like a cool place to secretly camp.
        
         | hackernewds wrote:
         | with that proximity to San Francisco, that idea likely has
         | already been oversubscribed
        
       | ihaveajob wrote:
       | Fun fact: You can reach it by bike from the east bay now, and it
       | makes for a fun ride. Just be careful for side winds!
        
       | themodelplumber wrote:
       | Pretty neat that you can view the whole circumference of the
       | house, and _almost_ read the plaque outside, in Street View:
       | 
       | https://goo.gl/maps/8Xc6MUhmAdKQTXbHA
       | 
       | It brings to mind good memories of family outings spent in former
       | officer's housing, up in Officers Row at Fort Worden, WA. Hide &
       | seek was a lot of fun.
        
       | jfoutz wrote:
       | also, interesting they had to design it not to cast a shadow on
       | that house
       | 
       | """ But the decision to build an architectural icon didn't end
       | problems - it started new ones. The most bizarre was with the
       | U.S. Navy. In 1998, it refused to let Caltrans onto Yerba Buena
       | Island to finish its engineering work. The Navy's issue was
       | whether the Bridge would overshadow the one-time home of Admiral
       | Chester Nimitz, a hero of World War II.
       | 
       | "We had to come up with a design where we wouldn't cast a shadow
       | down onto that particular property," Ney explained, with the
       | Nimitz home in the background and directly next to the new span.
       | "We had to make sure that the bridge snugged up close enough to
       | the existing one so that we weren't coming over the top of
       | Admiral Nimitz' house." """
       | 
       | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-bay-bridge-competing-agains...
        
         | CPLX wrote:
         | San Francisco is the only place I know with this bizarre
         | obsession that things shouldn't be allowed to cast shadows on
         | other things, as a general rule.
         | 
         | It's just strange.
         | 
         | https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/SF-supervisors-...
        
           | zeagle wrote:
           | In the USA. For interest:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_light . The second
           | last paragraph comments on SF.
        
             | CPLX wrote:
             | Very interesting. The concept has been soundly rejected in
             | the US. Except for San Francisco.
             | 
             | How's that working out?
        
               | jfoutz wrote:
               | I think NYC is king of sunlight regulation
               | https://www.nyc.gov/assets/oec/technical-
               | manual/08_Shadows_2...
        
         | Camillo wrote:
         | It may not cast a shadow directly on it, but the bridge still
         | destroyed the mansion's utility.
         | 
         | The alternative would have been to run the new east span south
         | of the old one, instead of north. Apparently San Francisco
         | preferred that option, but Oakland wanted the north alignment.
         | I'm not sure why, all I've seen mentioned so far is that they
         | chose that particular alignment to ensure drivers would get a
         | good view of San Francisco while driving west...
        
       | adolph wrote:
       | The whole thing is a frankenbuilding but that add-on toilet on
       | the back side is something else.
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-05 23:00 UTC)