In the Bay between San Francisco and Oakland sits lovely, windy Treasure Island.  Originally the site of the San Francisco 1939 World’s Fair and later a Naval Base, this prime parcel is being turned to other uses, from residential to movie & TV production.

In the 1990s, T.I. was still occupied by the Navy but not much was going on. Limited areas were open to the public but sometimes the guard stations were unmanned and you could drive around the island which was practically deserted.

A surpassing amount remained from the fair. In front of the old Administration building there were statues in the style known as “Pacifica”.

Most of the statues you see here still exist.

Doesn’t she look great for her age? (Her leaves have been repaired).

And there was the terracotta fountain—a topographic map of the Pacific Basin, executed by Gladding-McBean. The map originally sat on the floor of Pacific House and people stood on a second floor balcony looking down at an “aerial” view of the Pacific. The Navy decided to put the map in storage and to do this they had to cut it into little pieces. I got call from Anne Schnoebelen who was working with the Treasure Island Museum. Could I take a picture looking straight down at the map?  Sure, but I’d have to rent scaffolding and build a platform over the thing.

I don’t remember who decided this was more effort than it was worth but in the end, we were assisted by the Treasure Island Fire Department. The idea was to use a fire truck ladder at a near-horizontal angle to reach out over the map so I could look straight down.

That’s me, moving very slowly out the end of the ladder. If you’re not already impressed by what fire fighters do, try climbing a ladder like this on a hot day wearing a helmet and a fire retardant jacket.

It almost worked. I’m ok with ladders when both ends are resting on something.  But when one end of the ladder is out in space, bobbing around, that’s no fun at all. We wore full firefighting gear which included jackets, helmets and a belt with a Carabiner we hooked to the rungs. You’ll notice I said “we”. They had a guy behind me working the clamp as we moved along. Whenever either of us moved, the ladder would bounce. Like a tuning fork. The further we went, the bigger the bounce. With no free hand, I had my big Pentax 67 with the 55mm lens (about a 28mm on a 35mm camera) around my neck.

After a few minutes of “climbing” it was obvious I lacked the nerve to go out to the very last rung of the ladder. Having gotten that far, I took some shots of the fountain at an oblique angle.  From this viewpoint, the earth was more like an olive but with the magic of Photoshop I can now make things a bit rounder.  Since the ladder wasn’t exactly stable, I wanted a lot of photos to make sure some were sharp. But the Pentax 67 gave just 10 shots per roll. I managed to change rolls, but when closing the back I hit the release buttons for the camera’s removable prism. Down it went, coming to rest somewhere near American Samoa. The map sustained a tiny nick near Tahiti but the prism required burial at sea.

Couldn’t we just take a photo from this angle?

As far as I got, rotated so north is at the top. Not one of my greatest accomplishments but since the map is now in pieces less than a foot square, it’s nice to have a record of what it was like.

I love terra cotta but I also really like terra firma.

October 2019 update – After a long absence, I recently revisited Treasure Island to give a lecture. It was a typically gorgeous, “crisp” day, with a great turnout, including a few people who had been to the fair. After the presentation, we took a tour of the island. The Navy is long gone, but the island, now destined for residental use, hasn’t changed all that much.

The Pacific Basin fountain remains in storage, but Anne found a photo showing what it looked like when it was new: