Almost 41 years ago, nine months after construction had begun on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, Patrick McInerney was born in the Coronado Hospital, a short walk from the bridge's foot.
The gestational math adds up.
Give or take a few weeks, the bay bridge started to take physical shape at the same time McInerney was conceived.
Call it kismet, Coronado-style.
Last week, I met the formerly London-based architect – son of Jere and Bob McInerney, old family friends of mine – on the patio of Il Fornaio.
As Navy ships, tourist ferries, Navy jets, Jet Skis, joggers and Segways passed by in random parade, McInerney talked about growing up AB – after the bridge.
To my Boomer generation, the ferries were intertwined in Coronado's DNA. It was widely considered a civic tragedy, accompanied by wailing Greek choruses, when the bridge killed the commuter ferries.
Pat Brown's Damn Bridge. That's what grouchy nostalgics called the huge brontosaurus rib suspended over the bay.
The ferry ride, even if it was only 10 or 15 minutes, made Coronado seem a world apart, an Edenic garden with Sodom (downtown San Diego) and Gomorrah (Tijuana) off in the distance.
The August day in 1969 when the ferries sailed away, McInerney wasn't even 2 years old.
“I think I have the certificate from the last ferry boat ride,” he said. “My parents made sure I was on the last ferry.”
To McInerney, the bridge was a landmark as constant as the Hotel Del, a thrill ride in which you ascend a concrete chute and then get smacked with a whirling world view of the mountains, the waterfront, the bay, Point Loma and the Pacific.
As a kid, McInerney lived off Sunset Park, overlooking North Beach, Coronado's best surf break.
Like generations before him, he learned to swim at the Hotel del Coronado's pool under the gruff supervision of George Griffith, a former diving champion who was probably weaned wearing a Speedo.
In high school, McInerney played on the ground floor of what would become a skyscraper, Coronado's water polo dynasty. (Two local players starred on the U.S. Olympic team in Beijing.)
In 1983, McInerney was a sophomore starter on Coronado's first CIF championship squad. For the triumphal return after the Goliath-sized final victory, “they decorated the bridge,” he recalled.
McInerney loved Coach Randy Burgess' punishing workouts, the pursuit of excellence, the camaraderie.
But looking back in the morgue, I ran across a sharp chip on the intense architect's shoulder.
After the team failed to be awarded a No. 1 ranking in 1985, McInerney, then a senior, told sportswriter Mark Zeigler: “We've always been the dogs of San Diego. It's like there's San Diego and then there's Coronado – like we're separate from the rest of the city and county.”
After graduation, McInerney left Coronado to attend the University of Southern California. He audited an architecture class and was drawn to what he calls the “layers” of European design. In his junior year, he went to London to study architecture for a year – and ended up staying 17.
Before opening his own office, he worked for minimalist London architect David Chipperfield, contributing to gleaming high-profile projects like the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.
Out on his own, McInerney designed ultra-sleek spaces for “supermodels and rock stars,” as he put it. Clients included actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Dolce & Gabbana, the swank Italian fashion house.
Three years ago, McInerney and wife Kim decided to return to San Diego to make more time for their busy lives.
Expatriates no more, they rented in Coronado, but they are building McInerney's vision of a modern San Diego family home in Mission Hills (think Irving Gill with a steely eye to the future) near Francis Parker's lower campus, where their two young children attend school.
About nine months ago, someone e-mailed McInerney and told him about the Port of San Diego's competition to light up the bridge as public art.
McInerney called Jason Edling, an associate at Ove Arup, the engineering firm that built the Sydney Opera House. Edling, who works out of San Francisco, had never seen the Coronado bridge but took an immediate shine to the lighting project.
Ned Kahn, a Northern California artist who has done innovative work with wind and light, was drafted into the California design team. They are one of three finalists in the port competition; a winner will be announced by the end of the year.
To an architect who grows up in Coronado, moves to Europe and then returns, the cityscape can look dull, parochial, tired.
McInerney's charge of the light brigade has that impatient edge.
“It's the stake in the ground,” he said. “Let's change the way we're thinking about the city, about the waterfront.”
He sees the art project as “stealth design,” a decorative leap from the bridge's simplicity.
“If you were an artist and wanted to do a bridge, you'd be shot down,” McInerney said.
As a leader of the California team, he's glad the other two finalists are European – French and English – with gaudy résumés. He also likes the fact that the panel, in sifting through 80 submissions, didn't appear to realize that he's a native son.
“They didn't choose us because I'm local,” he said.
If his team is ultimately selected by the port's panel, McInerney promises that the bridge will go off the electrical grid.
It will take millions of dollars – in grants and donations – to create the bridge art, but it will cost zero to power.
The visual impact will be dramatic. The carbon footprint, invisible.
This we've got to see.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
