Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: San Franciscans seek to rescue foghorns of yore Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 16:22:11 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \HD San Franciscans seek to rescue foghorns of yore \BY Valerie Richardson \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES \DT SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO - No one knows what San Francisco would be like without the clanging of the cable cars, Giants baseball in windy Candlestick Park, the baritone bellow of foghorns moaning through the mist. And San Franciscans have no intention of finding out. They spent millions to renovate the old cable cars rather than replace them with sleek, new models. On Tuesday, local business owners snatched the nearly departed San Francisco Giants from the jaws of fans in St. Petersburg, Fla. Now they're organizing to save the sonorous "BEE-ohh! " of San Francisco Bay's foghorns. The Coast Guard removed the last of the air-compressor horns from the southern tip of Alcatraz Island last week, replacing them with 35 high-tech gadgets that emit an electronic "beep" every 10 seconds. The Coast Guard calls it progress, noting that the new beepers are cheaper and more reliable than the antique foghorns, also called diaphragms. But Wayne Wheeler, president of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, calls it sacrilege. "That 'beep' sounds like R2D2, like something out of 'Star Wars,' " Mr. Wheeler said. "The foghorns are something out of San Francisco's 'Sam Spade' past - that wonderful, mournful, romantic sound reverberating through the neighborhoods of San Francisco on foggy evenings." Confronted with a public outcry, the Coast Guard agreed Thursday to turn over some of the obsolete sentinels to an interested group, said Mike Van Houten, assistant chief of the Coast Guard's Aids to Navigation Office in Long Beach. "We'd consider turning them over to the Lighthouse Society, but we probably won't go back to Alcatraz," said Mr. Van Houten. "We just put the new equipment there at Alcatraz, and I don't think we're going to go take it out again." Although Mr. Wheeler's first choice is to have the foghorns returned to Alcatraz, he acknowledges that he may have to settle for another location, such as the waterfront, Angel Island or the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Lighthouse Society is preparing for a meeting with the Coast Guard by gathering letters of support from newly elected Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Sen.-elect Barbara Boxer, as well as Mayor Frank Jordan, state Sen. Quentin Kopp and the city's Board of Supervisors. The city has maintained foghorns since 1857, but the distinctive "BEE-ohh!" was not heard until 1915, said Mr. Wheeler, when the city bought its first diaphragms from a Canadian company. In their heyday in the mid-1930s, 51 horns, whistles and other devices filled the night air with "a cacophony of sounds . . . all vying for the attention of the mariner," he said. Mr. Wheeler doubts coastal dwellers will be as happy with the new beep as they were with the diaphragm. "If prevailing winds change, and that sound goes down the chimneys of Pacific Heights, the Coast Guard is going to find themselves up to their eyeballs in letters," predicted Mr. Wheeler. But not everyone is anxious to save the beleaguered bleaters. Sailors and fishermen say the the foghorns don't work very well, and the Coast Guard complains they break down constantly. A Coast Guard veteran of 23 years, Mr. Wheeler himself admits they "were never very good to navigate with." Even Herb Caen, longtime columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and a city tradition himself, was willing to blow off the bellowers in yesterday's column. "[I]f we do save the foghorns, simply for aural purposes, what we wind up with is a cosmetic, synthetic solution to a nonexistent problem," said Mr. Caen. "It's fine with me - one of the true sounds of the city, and all that, but not to be compared to the cable cars, as some would have it." "The Bay without foghorns is like the cable cars without bells," counters city Supervisor Annemarie Conroy. "They are part of the San Francisco experience." Ironically, the "beep" may soon be as obsolete as the "BEE-ohh!" Coast Guard officials have predicted that advances in navigational technology may soon render all horns unnecessary, although you can't tell a San Franciscan that. "Just as our cable cars may be technically 'unnecessary' for mass ground transportation, foghorns may be technically 'unnecessary' for mariners. However, foghorns are more than navigational guides," said Miss Conroy. "Their sound is part of the city's soul, character and identity." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM