Tiled courtyard adds to ‘beautiful’ veterans museum at O.C. fairgrounds
A steady mechanized whir filled the air Monday as a construction crane lifted a massive concrete slab into the air above the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa.
The crane slowly swung the piece into position. As it was lowered, a team of workers painstakingly guided it into place.
“Watch your fingers,” one worker cautioned as the team settled the piece onto the ground.
The slab, shaped like the arm of a star, was one of seven pieces installed Monday in the courtyard in front of what eventually will be the Heroes Hall veterans museum at the fairgrounds.
Together, the prices make up a decorative design modeled after the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“There aren’t really many words that can describe it,” OC Fair Board member Nick Berardino said as he surveyed the site.
Berardino was part of an assortment of reporters, photographers and fairgrounds officials who gathered Monday morning to watch the installation.
“It just stills your heart and quiets your soul,” Berardino, a Vietnam veteran, said of Heroes Hall. “Look how beautiful this is. It’s gorgeous. It’s unbelievable.”
Heroes Hall, a former World War II-era Army barracks constructed about 1942, was formerly known as the Memorial Gardens Building.
The fairgrounds had planned to demolish the building in 2013 to make room for Plaza Pacifica, but after hearing concerns from veterans, the Fair Board voted instead to reuse the structure as a veterans museum.
Ground was broken on the project in March and the building was moved to its new home near Centennial Farm in April.
The plan is to open the building to the public on Veterans Day, according to project supervisor Bolton Colburn. Exhibitions are scheduled to be installed in January.
Though fairgrounds officials said Monday that they’re excited to see the project come together, there were some solemn moments.
Berardino took a pin given to him by the Department of Defense for his service in the Vietnam War and buried it in the courtyard.
Fair Board member Stan Tkaczyk came across two familiar names on a plaque in the courtyard honoring Orange County residents who died in Vietnam: Paul Adams and Dennis Cullen, friends Tkaczyk went to high school with.
“These are guys you grew up with, you played football together, you hung out together — then they’re gone,” a visibly emotional Tkaczyk said.
“It hits you at a young age — realizing the price of freedom,” he added. “It’s not free. It’s very costly.”
Tkaczyk called Heroes Hall “one of the most beautiful projects I’ve ever been involved with” and said it will serve as an “extremely distinguished place to honor our veterans in Orange County.”
“We knew we wanted to do something that would be special, and from what I’m seeing today, my God, it’s far exceeded what I’d hoped we’d be able to do,” he said.
