US Navy to Alter "Swastika" Building Due to Web Maps

Your tax dollars at work: The US Navy will be spending about $600,000 to redesign or camouflage a 1960s barracks building in San Diego because of complaints that it looks like a swastika when viewed from the air. In the past this might have been a problem only for the occasional air traveler who happened over Coronado island, but with the advent of aerial mapping and visualization tools like Google Earth, everyone can see anything from the sky. In fact, many people have made a game out of finding oddities in satellite photos.

Now it's one thing to see landmarks like this and snicker over a designer's missteps 40 years ago (the Navy says it noticed the shape but that it didn't think anyone would see it from above), but it's another thing altogether to complain to the Navy about the shape of a building when viewed from space. But people really seem to have the time on their hands: The Navy says it's been inundated with complaints; enough, I suppose, to justify spending that much money on new structures and extra bushes. It's the first known case of its kind.

So what will the building look like when the job is done, I wonder? A set of four connected squares? A pinwheel formed from triangles? Post your ideas for what the Navy ought to do out of the wayward swastika here and we'll see if we can't pass them along to the powers that be.

LINK: Google Maps Causes US Navy To Change Its Swastika Building