Thursday, November 12th, 2009
This is the view from San Francisco over the Golden Gate – can you see the defunct buildings of Hill 88 in front of the East Peak of Mount Tamalpais? Those buildings were the eyes and ears of SF-88, southern Marin’s very own Nike Hercules missile complex.
Click to expand
The actual nuclear warheads and missiles were stored at another facility down the hill – you can visit that place Wednesday through Saturday.
What’s shown in this photo above is the radar station part of the base, on the summit, where they had German shepherd guard dogs, machine guns, the whole magilla until the 1970’s. San Francisco also had a similar setup back in the day using the Presidio and Mount Sutro, but that was the smaller, non-nuclear Nike Ajax system and there’s really nothing left to visit anymore.
But in Marin, you can climb up to the hilltop facility of SF-88 whenever you want - you’ll get nice views and you’ll have a chance to see the graffiti.
Come visit Marin’s Wild Ghost Town in the Sky.
Tags: 88, air force, ajax, army, atomic, base, beach, bombers, bombs, county, ghost town, headlands, hercules, hiking, hill, Hill 88, marin, military, missile, mount, mount tam, nike, nuclear, photo, pics, presidio, rodeo, San Francisco, sf-88, sf-89, sutro, tamalpais, Wild Ghost Town in the Sky
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Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
Here’s what’s just north of the old Public Health Service Hospital in the Presidio – San Francisco’s very own SF-89 Nike missile launch complex. Of course the bay area has other similar sites, such as Marin County’s preserved SF-88 location captured in photographs from Telstar Logistics here (it’s a “must-see“), but San Francisco’s old missile bases are not as well-known.
Look below to see a missile magazine at SF-89L Presidio (the “L” stands for “launch”). The bay doors used to open downwards to reveal an elevator shaft. The complementary Site SF-89C Mount Sutro (the “C” stands for “control”) can be seen near Sutro Tower on the right, two and a half miles to the south. Click to expand:
And here’s all that’s left of the the Mount Sutro site near UCSF:
Now don’t go exploring around, the way you used to at the PHSH before restoration got started.
C – Mount Sutro (Twin Peaks) ((P) TV tower)
Jef Poskanzer’s detailed web page
L – Battery Caulfield Rd. ((P) Golden Gate NRA (National Recreation Area))
the pads abandoned and used for open air storage. The adjacent buildings are used by an EOD unit. An Ajax site featured in Nike promotional photos, it closed in 1963 (07 May 89). ]
You can almost make out the words “Nike Facility” next to the big red area in the upper right.
Tags: 740th AAA Battalion, ajax, army, fort winfield scott, hercules, ifc, missile, mount sutro, nike, presidio, San Francisco, sf-88, sf-88c, sf-88l, sf-89, sf-89c, sf-89l, site, sutro tower, U.S., ucsf
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