He covers Bay Area culture, hosts the Total SF podcast and writes the archive-based Our San Francisco local history column. In March 1951, construction firm Barrett & Hilp put their bulky shelter on display in the middle of Union Square, offering free tours. Hartlaub and columnist Heather Knight co-created the Total SF project and event series, engaging with locals to explore and find new ways to celebrate San Francisco. San Francisco’s efforts were led by Mayor Elmer E. Robinson, who built upon the city’s civil defense plans from World War II. In a 2016 episode of The Americans, various households watch The Day After.After the viewing, 15-year-old Paige, whose parents are secret Soviet spies, approaches her father. But that fact never makes the threats seem any less real. George Galvin, Admiral A.G. Cook, Mayor Elmer Robinson and Andrew Pansini set up air raid signs before a civil defense drill in San Francisco's Union Square on June 19, 1951. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. “With the widely publicized time and date for the practice of air alerts, just when would the enemy planes plan their attacks on us?” Raff wrote. The fire department reported they would “work toward the center of the blast from all sides, extinguishing any fires as they went.”. In a late 1951 letter to the editor, Myrtle Raff of San Mateo predicted the siren tests themselves could mask an enemy assault. Photo: Chronicle file photo / The Chronicle 1951. Bomb shelters showed up at the Home Show at the Oakland Expo that summer, and in dozens of real estate listings. The party is ending, and America remains divided. Many of the top physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project believed that it would be at least five years before the Soviets could build their own atomic bomb. More than 65 years later the weekly sirens continue on Tuesdays at noon, followed by instructions. Then something very San Francisco happened, On 25th anniversary of Toy Story, a look at the film’s surprising Bay Area birthplace. Earl Warren outlined a civil defense plan with a target completion date of 1953, Robinson demanded immediate results, leaning heavily on his civilian defense director, retired admiral A.G. Cook. “3 bedrooms, 2 ½ baths, social and bar, bomb shelter, other extras …”. “So badly that Mayor Elmer E. Robinson announced he will invoke his emergency powers Tuesday to speed installation of bigger, better sirens.”. Union Square became the city’s first “official public shelter in case of enemy attack,” and The Chronicle took photos of Robinson and Cook installing “Air Raid Shelter” signs. Atomic bomb scare in 1950s brought the city on high alert. The pilot in command, Walter Scott Tulloch (grandfather of actress Bitsie … At the same conference, a federal official criticized the city’s experts for fear-mongering. Smiling passersbys assembled under the parking garage during one of the regular 11 a.m. Friday drills. With both the United States and Soviet Union stockpiling nuclear weapons, fears of nuclear warfare pervaded American society and culture in the 1950s. On 24 January 1961, a B-52 Stratofortresscarrying two 3–4-megatonMark 39 nuclear bombsbroke up in mid-air near Goldsboro, North Carolina, dropping its nuclear payload in the process. The Soviet nuclear test shocked the world. Civilians gather in the Union Square garage during an air raid drill in San Francisco on March 11, 1952. Read about the impact of nuclear proliferation in the 1950s, including fears of atomic bombs and increasing militarization. Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s culture critic and co-host of Total SF. “You guessed it — on a Friday at 11 a.m. But Robinson pushed forward, calling for thousands of volunteer civil defense workers, running constant city-wide tests and eventually expanding his own executive powers. The gathering included far-out theories — including the possibility of the Russians using a bomb to cause a 100-foot tidal wave, that would cover the state in radioactive mist. When the White House publicly announced that the Soviet Union had indeed exploded their own atomic weapon (known as JOE-1) on September 23, 1949, discussions surrounding the proposal to build the superbomb immediately intensified. As San Francisco leaders plan for a horrific possibility of a North Korea nuclear strike in 2017, they can do so knowing the city has been through this before. April 2, 1951: An atomic bomb shelter is on display in Union Square in San Francisco. “Architectually designed for today’s modern living,” read one 1951 listing for a $26,000 house in the Westlake district just south of the city. The American people believe it pays to advertise.”. “The Mayors of ‘target cities’ of the Pacific Coast sat down here yesterday to talk about what might be done in the event of an atomic attack,” J. Campbell Bruce reported on the front page of The Chronicle. San Francisco schools practiced duck and cover drills throughout 1951, instructing students to open the windows a crack so the blast force caused by the atomic bomb impact wouldn’t drop broken glass on any children. While California Gov. Both Harry Truman and Major General Leslie Groves ha… Fear of the spread of communism and the Korean War caused a wave of civil defense preparation in the Bay Area that would be hard to match. Robinson ordered a city survey of the effects of an atomic bomb hitting downtown San Francisco. The atomic scare hit the Bay Area so hard and fast in 1950 and 1951, even the upscale shopping district of Union Square felt the impact. The Bay Area native, a former Chronicle paperboy, has worked at The Chronicle since 2000. Civil defense-related conspiracy theories appeared in The Chronicle letters page. Email: PHartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub. “And from the talk of experts, if you are attacked with atomic weapons there’s nothing much you can do, for the simple reason most people won’t be around to do anything.”. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. Mobilization started after Robinson invited other city leaders to a June 14, 1950, conference on civil defense, a weekend-long affair two weeks before the war officially started. “FOR YOUR FAMILY’S PROTECTION,” a sign stated, on top of a toolshed-sized concrete and steel bomb shelter across the street from the St. Francis Hotel. It wasn’t long before fear led to new marketing opportunities. (“This is a test …”) They’re solar powered now, run by the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management. Popular culture and mass media in the 1950s. Is the dream of unity over. Three women walk toward the Union Square garage during an air raid drill in San Francisco on March 11, 1952. In the decade since the atomic bombs were dropped, fear of nuclear weapons and radiation grew so widespread and deep that in the mid-1950s President Eisenhower, Weart … Fnd out how a 40-year stand-off between superpowers put America on edge Holiday fire stations once lit up the city. The atomic scare hit the Bay Area so hard and fast in 1950 and 1951, even the upscale shopping district of Union Square felt the impact. “San Francisco’s air raid warning system flunked its first test yesterday,” The Chronicle reported in 1950. Schools began issuing dog tags to students so that their families could identify their bodies in the event of an attack. Paranoia was common at the height of the Cold War – the natural offspring of fear, ignorance, propaganda and secrecy. “ATOMIC BOMB SHELTER.”. He made the city’s readiness for an atomic bomb attack a priority, spouting dire warnings and criticizing other government officials for not preparing enough. Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. (John Dominis/Life Picture Collection via Getty Images) M ore than 30 years later, the impact of the film and its profound moment of communal vulnerability are still felt.. 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