The Last of the Temporary Wartime Housing in Marin City
By Carol Acquaviva
Note: This is the third in a series of articles about Marin City.
“Reconversion from wartime to peacetime housing must be balanced with national policies governing the reconversion to peacetime economy.” — W.P. Seaver, assistant commissioner of the National Public Housing Authority, speaking at Marin City’s community center in 1943.
In April 1962, nearly 570 families resided in Marin City, some living in homes that had been built in the early 1940s and intended to house Marinship workers and their families. To clear the way for redevelopment, twenty-seven wartime buildings had been scheduled to be burned that month. The Marin County Fire Department completed the final phase of burning the residential duplexes on April 20, 1962. These structures had been “to serve for the duration of the war and five years thereafter.” Due to the shortages of critical war materials, the comfort and sanitation of these structures were understood to be substandard for long-term occupancy.
County Fire Chief Charles A. Reilley received permission from the county supervisors to burn the duplexes at his own discretion. The year previous, more than 150 duplexes had been burned. Windy conditions halted the fires and the last duplex — with one exception — went up in smoke on April 25.
Firefighters had saved one last duplex so that the American Silexore Corporation of San Francisco could use it to demonstrate to the state fire marshal, fifteen Marin fire chiefs, architects, engineers, and hospital and school officials, the efficacy of fire retardant paint. However, on April 26, late-night arsonists, believed to be youth, set fire to the only remaining temporary duplex by spreading kerosene and dry grass inside the structure. The fire retardant paint which had been placed on kitchen walls proved to be effective in that there was less damage compared to the other, untreated walls. The San Francisco Examiner reported: “The manufacturing company bemoaned the lack of an audience, but seemed well pleased with the results.”
The editor of the Marin Citizen newsletter noted in November 9, 1945:
The CITIZEN has some very definite ideas on the great future for Marin City... [I]t will be a matter of a long, long time before the critical housing shortage is over in the Bay Area and until that time there is little possibility of Marin City being anything but what it is — a blessing to war workers still here, veterans and their families and the many, many servicemen and their families now residing here. [T]he Marin Dorms have been declared surplus property by the Government and that the Marin Housing Authority will no longer use the premises.
The decision to tear down the intended-to-be-temporary housing in Marin City had been discussed at great length over the span of several decades since the war ended. In 1966 the Hall family was the last to occupy a temporary WWII housing structure there. The Halls were a family with seven sons aged 6 to 18 who lived at House 109. Facing eviction, the Halls were eager to find a new place to live. “Last winter,” said Josephine Hall, “the whole house was flooded.” She reported that there were rats under the house, and broken windows. They had previously not qualified for low-rent housing because their earnings in 1965 were $700 too high.
Matthew was a construction worker who had been living in Marin City since 1957. He said that he and his wife found it difficult to relocate out of the temporary housing because of the size of his family. Josephine concurred. “Most of the people said if we had seven girls, it would be all right. They believe boys are harder on the property than girls.” Matthew continued:
“I looked for a house and found one in San Rafael. The man said he would rent it. Then he asked, ‘How many children?’ I said, ‘seven.’ He said, ‘What are they?’ I said, ‘Boys.’ He said, ‘I can’t rent to a family with seven boys.’ I called other people on the phone and they, too, said that they couldn’t rent to a family with seven boys.”
Matthew and Josephine, their seven boys and their dog Casey eventually moved into a three-bedroom, one-bath redevelopment apartment at 987 Drake Avenue. Eight years later, Josephine was profiled in the San Francisco Examiner, where it was mentioned that the couple had adopted a girl, and Josephine, in addition to her job in a children’s center and as a volunteer bookkeeper, had decided to go return to school to earn a degree in early education.
