![]() He would do the same thing on behalf of the city. But I’m really using that as an illustration. We actually built a pier out there that’s useable.” And the controversy died down. I said, "Joe, you couldn’t use it before. He threatened to make us dig out all the mud and the rocks we put in there. He came down and just chewed me out, about had me hung and quartered. So we went ahead on our own and ripped the wharf out and put a seawall out in the water and filled it up with rock and debris and paved it over before he knew about it. And he said, aw, he was busy or something, couldn’t do it. We had an old wharf that was just about getting ready to fall in, and I was after him to try and fix it up, because it was really port property. Talking about getting things done, Joe and I had a big brouhaha one time at one of the fish canneries. Later, the port commission was made up of representatives of all the port cities, but I’m just talking about Joe Brennan, who just worked for San Diego, which included the Harbor Board. The Harbor Board was like a management committee, responsible for fixing fees for rentals. Joe had the Navy do it, but he was instrumental for getting it done. ![]() That-open bight on Coronado was all filled in I remember when North Island was actually cut off from Coronado by that open bight there. They filled up the strand running around Coronado with the sand they dredged from the bay. And they’d dredge out certain areas of the bay that he was trying to develop. I know that when things had to go through normal channels, congressmen and this, that, and the other, he’d buttonhole the Navy brass down here if he wanted them to do something for the city. He just plowed in and did it, and he didn’t have to decide if they should move something to leave room for the seagulls to lay their eggs. But Brennan was a real pioneer he was the kind of guy who could really build a nation. I’ve so often thought, good God, if they wanted to do that today they’d have to have hearings the environmentalists would want to know if you were bothering the fish. It was just off the rowing club, served by a little bridge, a pier, it had handball courts on it, room for volleyball, and it had palm trees on it. He dredged out one area of the bay that was very shallow, in front of the rowing club, which was at the foot of Seventh Street, and created an island out there that they called Brennan Island. Brennan, of course, was very active in the rowing club, even though he wasn’t a rower. My earliest memory about the bay was when the rowing club was the center of activity and the rowing crews were working up and down the harbor. ![]() He was rough-talking, but everybody recognized him as a big-bluff Irishman and accepted it. He was heavyset, always chugging and red-faced and going like an Indian. He was kind of a - not a bull-headed guy, but a let’s-get-it-done guy, and of course, the harbor department, the harbor commission, would only find out long after it was done, and they’d climb on him and he’d fight back. ![]() Joe Brennan, who held the job of San Diego Harbormaster between 19, is the subject of this story by C. The Marine base and the Navy base is all fill too. He conned the Navy into doing the dredging, and they had to have some place to dump the spoil, so they started filling in that area where the airport is and created a solid land mass.
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