City preview · SAN DIEGO

San Diego kept a Navy ship on dry land

The Coronado Bridge takes a long curve, trading distance for the clearance needed by Navy ships. Hotel del Coronado played a Florida resort in Some Like It Hot. At Liberty Station, USS Recruit never touched the water; recruits used its concrete decks to practice boarding and shipboard routines. Elsewhere in San Diego, Rocket Chemical Company’s fortieth attempt at a rust-preventing, water-displacing formula supplied the name WD-40.

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Coronado Bridge Viewpoint · Editorial illustration, not a historical photo

From a harbor bridge to formula 40

A long bridge, a stand-in hotel, a landlocked Navy ship, and WD-40

Four complete stories and their public sources are shown here; the rest of the collection is in the app.

01 · Coronado Bridge Viewpoint

The bridge's curve makes room for ships

It takes the long way to gain height over the channel.

San Diego-Coronado Bridge needs to get a large warship across the bay without allowing cars to climb through steep slopes. Engineers pulled the bridge curve in exchange for more horizontal distances for a net height of navigation. After the 1969 bus, the original car ferry stopped regular service. Looking at that arc from the shore today, it is both a structural choice and an indication of how one day-to-day traffic has been replaced by another.

Source: dot.ca.gov

02 · Hotel del Coronado

A Florida hotel filmed in California

Some Like It Hot found its Florida exterior in Coronado.

Some Like It Hot needed a Florida renort in the 1920s, and the team chose the Hotel del Coronado. The sun, the wood balcony and the beach were responsible for impersonating Miami on the screen, and many indoor scenes were returned to the studio. The film cuts one of the California Hotels into space in another state: the scene is real, and the interior arteries and geography are re-assembled by clippings.

Source: hoteldel.com

03 · USS RECRUIT

A warship that never touched water

Navy recruits learned shipboard rules on a concrete deck.

USS Recruit was officially used as a training vessel but never neared the surface. The Navy built a scalding bridge, decks and arms contours on Navar Training Center land, allowing recruits to practise boarding, formation, location and use of terminology on ships. So it gets the nickname Uss Neversail. After the base was decommissioned, the gray concrete ship remained in Liberty State, surrounded by restaurants, schools and public squares.

Source: libertystation.com

04 · WD-40 Company

The fortieth formula became the name

Thirty-nine attempts failed before WD-40 worked.

In 1953, Rocket Chemical Company in San Diego researched a rust-prevention and water-displacement formula for the aerospace industry. The first 39 attempts missed the target; the fortieth worked, giving the product its name: Water Displacement, 40th formula. The company's account also says Convair employees smuggled cans home in lunch boxes, and that demand eventually led to a retail aerosol. The company remains headquartered locally.

Source: wd40company.com Source: wd40company.com

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