La Lengua separatist and rebel spokesblogger Burrito Justice recently found an interesting Cold War-era map of the San Francisco Bay Area that was produced by military cartographers in the former Soviet Union:
The Soviets (good god, that sounds weird now) went to town mapping the world for their Cold War needs. This particular SF map is 200000:1, but they detailed some cities to 25000:1, and others down to 10000:1, highlighting tank-friendly roads and important buildings.
The excerpt shown above (click to enlarge) suggests that Bernal Heights might have fared relatively well during a Soviet ground invasion. Notice, for example, that Cortland Ave. was not recommended as a tank-friendly transport route, while the Sutrito microwave telecommunications tower is not highlighted as a militarily significant structure.
So we’ve got that going for us.
IMAGE: Via Burrito Justice
Bernalwood 
I dunno when this is from, but it’s some OOOOOOLD intelligence. It shows Crissy Field as an airfield, which it hasn’t been since the thirties.
Also, anyone have any idea what the second airport shown in Alameda is? I mean, obvious NAS Alameda is out on the tip, but not sure what the one the map shows in central Alameda would be.
I believe its from 1980. It seems to include abandoned airfields, including Crissy (which, actually, remained active into the 1960s, and the runway itself wasn’t removed until the park went in). There was also an abandoned civilian airport in Alameda, at about that location.
That said, I puzzled over the airports shown in the Berkeley and Sausalito marinas. Landing sites for Soviet ekranoplans???? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun_class_ekranoplan
Crissy Field had helicopter traffic into the 80s.
Maybe the other sites were floatplanes? (And why so few floatplanes in SF Bay? You can’t shake a stick and not hit one in Seattle/Victoria/Vancouver.)
Bernal Wolverines! Who’s with me!? Oh… am I late?
+1 on the geeky reference.
Ask Rush and he would tell you Commies invading San Francisco would be redundant.
bernalwood in actual cyrillic: берналвоуд
I would have spelled it Берналвуд. But we disagree over only one letter 🙂 I’m just jealous you beat me to the punch.
I, myself would have spelled it: Бэрналвуд. It captures more of the exotic nature of American pronunciation.
I am disappointed that I see no markings for vodka production and storage facilities. Perhaps the creation of Hangar One vodka would have bumped the Bay Area up on the invasion list.
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