Nineteen.
Okay. It had a little bit of style even though it was built in the ‘fifties (42). That one and the lower one next to it. It had wood on it. At least, it didn’t look so Park Service-ish, but at least had a little style. Then they put those cookie cutter buildings in there, starting in ’64 or ’65, right in there. They were total disasters. The story I got was that they were designed out of Denver for housing in the Sonoran Desert or somewhere like that (43).
In San Francisco (44).
I guess it would have been, than. But it was designed for desert use.
There is a story going around that the flat roofs resulted because they would allow for heat to rise and burn all the snow off.
Yes, the oil was free. All employees got oil free up until the oil crisis (45). The idea for no insulation was for the heat to go thorough the roof and melt the snow. It worked beautifully until people had to start paying for their own oil. In the big three story one, I remember, one widow lady moved into it. She was on the outside wall and got permission to move over one apartment so she could have at least two warm walls on either side of her. That was her insulation. She was still paying for all the heat leaking out the other two sides. When those people started getting their bills, not only had oil gone from twenty cents a gallon to about eighty-ninety cents a gallon just within a matter of a few months, there was no insulation and they were having to pay for all of that. It was the government’s fault for building such lousy buildings. Then they started coming up with the insulation. The first thing they would do was put the insulation across the roof. Of course, you know what that did. It stopped the heat from melting the snow and so the roofs started cracking. So then they had to go up there and start shoving the snow all winter. The guys first started doing it on their time off. Then they started doing it during Park Service time. Now I guess they’re just hiring people just for that (46).
Yes.
They still do it?
