This is so encouraging to feel hope once again that this amazing and iconic building could continue to inspire the community and be here for the visitors to our town.

re: "The Navy has the money to re-skin Hangar One. The Navy knows that Hangar One is an icon of military history."

The Navy is part of the Federal government. The Federal government is $14 trillion dollars in debt. So, does the Navy really have the money to re-skin Hangar One?

Hangar One is a cool, local landmark, but does it really rate as an "icon of military history"?

If the city could take over this land, it could be rezoned and used for a corporate headquarters, housing, etc. but that doesn't sound like what anyone is considering. I think Hangar One is neat, too, but sometimes you have to let the past go. We can't preserve everything.

Hanger One is an icon of area and military history and anyone who dosen't think so is an idiot who is ignorant of local history. It should be saved at all costs in as complete condition as possible. Entering the hanger is like walking into another world of a bygone era!

As always, it's a matter of cost vs benefit. If the city can take it over without impacting taxes or school funding, the champagne is on me. If not, removing the hangar will be like putting your old and sick dog down. Painful and heartbreaking, but better for everyone in the end.

I agree with Dennis that the hangar must be saved at all costs (Well, other than a cost to me of course). Let's auction off Dennis' house, car and all of his personal belongings as a start on the cost of preserving the hangar. He can live at the hangar, making sure that no one spirits it away in the middle of the night, until the rest of the funds are raised.

One can't but wonder if this wasn't the NASA Ames / Navy plan all along. What I really don't understand is how we can justify, or wave away as inconsequential, the fact that our government continues to spend 10 BILLION (10,000 MILLION per Month or 120,000 MILLION per Year) dollars EVERY MONTH in the Middle East but they can't spare 32 million to restore a registered naval historic monument. Our tax dollars at work - what a joke.

Roxie, I hear you. But, to use an analogy, just because my wife blew $10,000 on jewelry doesn't mean that it's wise for me to splurge $100 on a silk tie. In fact, one might argue the opposite.
(Not that my wife has ever spent that kind of money on jewelry... that I know of :-)

Like Dennis, I think Hanger One should be preserved. But, Dennis, such unnecessarily rude language is not called for.

As long as the Republican mantra, cut taxes, holds sway governments at all levels will not have the money for their work, including maintenance, which, in the final analysis, is what preserving Hanger One amounts to.

Unless some wealthy benefactors get together and pay for preserving Hanger One, I don't think it will happen.

Perhaps NASA could transfer the Hangar 1 structure and the land below it back to DOD ownership, once it been fully de-sided in CY-2012, for its eventual reuse as a West Coast base for one or more of the large DOD airships currently under development and/or for housing the LTA craft the DOD already has in the Afghan and Iraq war zones...equipment that will eventually need to be brought back to the US and housed somewhere, until needed for support to the US war fighters elsewhere in the world. Re-siding of the Hangar doesn't have to occur in CY-2012. It will not immediately structurally collapse. The DOD's re-siding expense could be deferred until a re-sided Hangar is actually needed.

Save the damn thing!

How do you pay for it??? Slap Google or Apple or Intel on the side of it in massive letters, it's the biggest billboard in the history.

Get I. M. Pei & Partners, Paul Andreu or hell even Apple (they know how to make large curved glass structures due to their retail store designs and the new world headquarters building that won't have a single straight piece of glass) to wrap it in glass, solar or LCD panels.

Then you put it to use the 2020 World Expo, followed by the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum West and use by NASA/UC.

Look up: Chinese National Grand Theater for how it could look.

Put solar panels on it: community effort coordinated by soloar deveoper. Individuals can purchase one or more panels for their personal energy needs. Who says your solar supply needs to be right on the roof of your house or apartment.

If someone offers to sell you something that will require a toxic cleanup 3x your annual budget, the appropriate reaction is to run away as fast as you can.

Lots of uses for Hangar One just have to find the right one.

I don't believe there is any wide-spread support to save Hanger One using tax payers' money or not. It is a piece of relic, and an ugly one. It had served its purpose long, long time ago.

This land belongs to all of the constituents, not just a few history buffs and military aficionados. Let's free the land to build something more productive and more beautiful.

James Hoosac,

Have you ever had the opportunity to go inside Hanger One,or stand next to it, or have you only viewed it from 101? Do you know the history of
Hanger One?

Web Link

Use it as a hotel for the homeless.

To Dee: I have stood next to it a couple of times, and peeked inside. It's enormous when seeing it close. I saw quite a lot of pictures of it too. The history is well documented online and in some museums I went. The building had a purpose, and served that purpose well.

But it was not designed to last, or to look good aesthetically. It is giant polluted shell. It is expensive to maintain. It occupies an enormous piece of land that can be very productive for the local economy.

We can have a world wide architecture contest to design a modern building as voluminous as Hanger One, and build it at exactly the same location. It will be iconic, and last for generations. I'm sure a lot of developers would be interested in building it too.

Hangar1 could not be built today, as I understand it, because it would violate FAA regulations concerning height limits of new buildings near runways.

Hangar 1 is not like "Field of Dreams" where if you build it (or save it) they will come. The cost to save this historic structure, and maintain it, is prohibitive and uneconomical. The Federal government wants to walk away from Hangar 1 because they can't afford it, and they can print money. If there are some deep-pocket private benefactors who want to preserve it and do something with it, have at it, but keep your hands out of my taxpayer pockets.

The council should purchase the hangar with BMR funds and allow any homeless or low income person live there. If this is not enough money, council should require all of the people who belong to affordable housing groups, that have never spent a dime of their own money helping others, to sell their homes, donate the money to help pay for the hangar, and then live in it.

This is not something we, Mountain View residents, should be taking on. The old base is a mess and needs to be cleaned up by the Navy, if that means taking down Hanger One so be it. I would like to see the great dirigibles flying through the bay area once again, but that will never happen, everything has its time. Lets free up the the view of the bay and concentrate on more productive things such as restoring the wetlands.

The Navy IS paying for the cleanup as we speak... when the BRAC commission shut down Moffett Field NAS, it was renamed Moffett Federal Air Field, and NASA took ownership. But, the cleanup responsibilities have remained with the Navy. The Navy wanted to demolish it, but NASA and Hangar One proponents lobbied for the Navy restore it. The Navy agreed to just remove all the toxic stuff and let NASA or private sources pay for the restoration part of the bill, rather than demolish it. Soooooo... NASA Ames wants to save it, and local representatives pushed for funding within the NASA budget, but the NASA Inspector General thinks otherwise (especially given the current climate in D.C.). Bottom line is if Congress earmarked it, it would get done, but no one is willing to stick their neck out for this... just not important enough on a national scale with an election upcoming. I'm a huge fan of saving it, but do not think that should come from public coffers (federal, state or local), but rather from private sources. The idea of a Smithsonian West has been raised a number of times, so I'm sure the Hiller Aviation Museum has been approached... problem is $15M-ish is not a trivial amount just to get it weatherproof (re-skin it), let alone prepare it for new tenants. I'll shed a tear, but suspect I'll watch the Hangar be demolished in the coming years :(

Enough already with the hangar! It's always the same group of a fewnostalgia-obsessed old-timers who can't seem to bring themselves into the present that want to preserve it. Let's face it, nothing lasts forever, especially us! Not one use has been proposed for the hanger that would even pay the interest on a $32M loan to fix it up, yet the land under it is valuable as a corporate center, new neighborhood, or park - something that would benefit everyone or at least a large group of people, not just a few clingers-to-a-bygone-era. So what if it represents history. That's what history books and museums are for. Clean it up, raze it, and let's move on to making the future what we want it to be, not clinging desperately to the past.

Google is silent - let's listen to them and scrap the eyesore!

Replace the shell with translucent fabric and turn it into the new San Francisco 49ers stadium complete with corporate luxury boxes, etc!

I've had my say before and I bet many have read my opinion. So this time I simply say it is the right thing to save Hanger 1 and once it is gone we can't go back and change our minds.

Seer,

I'm curious what age group in your mind is "old-timers"?

My guess it is not people in their 20's or 30's. I know several people in this age group who see the value in preserving Hanger 1.

The recent turn in events does bring new possibilities for Hangar 1. IMO, any sustainable future for the hangar will be one that incorporates private funds for non-governmental uses. That said, there's a lot of potential in the land and structure that the Navy will leave behind once cleanup is done.

I'd like to hear more ideas. Some of the ones posed in this thread are really creative and intriguing. With the potential of the an upcoming World's fair or even the Olympics being hosted in the Bay Area, there might be opportunities that need only the right individuals with funding to realize something truly iconic.

Maybe a mega-sized planet granite? I remember watching a disaster response team demonstration in there years ago... picture sheer walls and cables crossing the thing. An adventure wonderland if not for liability.

Lot of silly comments above from people who fortunately have no money to purchase the Hangar. This structure would need a tremendous amount of money to make it usable for anything other than a large sculpture.

Sorry folks, the party is over. Time to let that big eye sore go.

The money to "restore" it is a waste.

Then if you do restore is, there's going to be upkeep. Who will pay for that?

You'd had YEARS to find private donors to take this on. Too late.

A zipline company should open up in there! Imagine a huge ropes course network that could be used for corporate team building exercises!

Hi, i think turning this building to a factory 2 [from 24 hour party people movie] to use like an electronic music cathedral. Imagine a space age electronic music stage moving through the air on thousands of people. :D Looks nice i guess.