Tomorrow people in San Francisco will celebrate the Golden Gate Bridge's seventy-fifth anniversary. It is nine thousand feet long, seven hundred and fifty feet tall, weighing 887,000 tons, has an Art Deco design and coated in millions of gallons of International Orange paint. The bridge is one of the most iconic on the planet and a recognizable symbol of the city of San Francisco, the state of California and the United States as a country. It is also an engineering marvel (one of the longest suspension bridges in the world) that many thought was too expensive to build, constructed across a strait that critics said was too treacherous to be bridged, and with many thinking that even if it could be built it would be too burdensome to operate. And yet, seventy-five years later, there it stands.
From USA Today:
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Some said it couldn't, or shouldn't, be built. When it hit 50, the sheer weight of its fans almost flattened it. This Sunday tens of thousands are expected to come visit as the Golden Gate Bridge turns 75.
The iconic suspension bridge arches across the Golden Gate, the opening of San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most well-known spans in the world, and each year more than 10 million people visit it, according to the Golden Gate Bridge District, which is responsible for its maintenance and upkeep. The bridge officially opened on May 27, 1937. Completed in just four and a half years at the height of the Depression, it is an example of American ingenuity, "overcoming adversity and thinking ahead," Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told a crowd on Friday as the ribbon was cut on the bridge's newly built welcome center.
Taking a moment to make a political point, California Gov. Jerry Brown noted that when the bridge was built the nation and the state were in a deep depression and much poorer than today. "When we 'couldn't afford it,' we built a great monument" and weren't afraid to invest in the future," he told the crowd.
"A young family gazed out into the bay looking at the nearly-completed bridge; it opened to the public on May 27, 1937." (Source)
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- From PBS' "American Experience": The idea of a bridge linking the city with its neighboring counties was appealing, but the mile-wide gap between San Francisco and Marin presented huge challenges. At the mouth of the Gate, the oncoming force of the Pacific Ocean creates turbulent waves and ripping currents. The location is plagued by gale-force winds and dense fogs. [Engineer Joseph] Strauss set his sights on bridging a spot that other engineers had deemed impossible. When he delivered his plans for the bridge, resistance emerged from every quarter. Environmentalists (including The Sierra Club) protested that the bridge would mar the Golden Gate's pleasing vista. Shipping companies claimed the bridge would impede navigation in the bay. Ferry companies were bent on protecting their monopoly on bay-crossings. Defense officials feared the bridge would become a target in wartime.
- Strauss alienated many people in his quest to build the structure -- his first suspension bridge. Obsessed with claiming credit as the span's creator, he minimized the acknowledgement given to Charles Ellis and Leon Moissieff, the two visionaries who actually worked out the significant engineering challenges of building the bridge. Strauss' detractors blocked a statue of the chief engineer proposed for the bridge plaza; his widow would eventually fund its creation in 1941, inscribing it, "Joseph B. Strauss, 1870-1938, 'The Man Who Built the Bridge.'"
- The original design proposed by Strauss:
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From
PBS Newshour:
Planners ultimately rejected Chicago bridge builder Joseph Strauss' original design for the bridge, shown [above] here. Historians credit Strauss with managing the project, securing funding and pushing the bridge from talk to reality.
But now officials are recognizing the work of another engineer, Charles Ellis, whose mathematics made the final design possible. The bridge's managers will unveil a plaque crediting Ellis' work this week.
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- As of April 2011, 1,929,896,448 vehicles had crossed the Golden Gate Bridge since opening in 1937.
- The total length of bridge, including approaches from abutment to abutment, is 1.7 miles.
- The height of the bridge’s towers above water is 746 feet. Each tower contains approximately 600,000 rivets.
- The bridge’s two cables have a diameter of 36 3/8 inches. Each main cable is 7,650 feet long.
- The bridge is named for the Golden Gate Strait, the entrance to the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean.
- The toll to cross the bridge in a car is $6.
- The damp, foggy air coming off the Bay is a very corrosive environment for a structure, requiring lots of maintenance. Engineers discovered in the 1970s that the bridge's suspender ropes - the vertical cables that connect the deck to the main cables - had corroded, some so badly that they could be picked apart with a pocket knife. All of the cables were replaced in the mid-1970s.
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- The bridge cost $27 million to build in 1932 (accounting for inflation and other aspects of modern construction, some years back it was estimated the cost to construct a new Golden Gate Bridge would be approximately $1.2 billion in 2003 dollars). The span was completed in less than five years--ahead of schedule and under budget--without the use of computers or calculators.
- Fanatical about safety, Joseph Strauss made hardhats mandatory for the bridge workers, and introduced the most elaborate and expensive safety device ever conceived for a major construction job -- a $130,000 safety net. Thanks to this innovation, nineteen men, dubbed the Halfway-to-Hell Club, would cheat death. But the net could not save everyone. Eleven men died during construction from 1933 to 1937 - ten of them when scaffolding fell through the safety net. The conditions were difficult, cold, foggy and windy, and workers who helped construct supports for the south tower had to contend with dangerous tides.
- As mentioned above, the Department of Defense (then the War Department) had concerns about the construction of the bridge, and had to be convinced before signing off on the project. The Navy originally wanted the Golden Gate Bridge painted with a black & yellow stripe pattern to ensure visibility by passing ships. However, the bridge was painted orange vermilion (dubbed International Orange) because it blends well with the bridge’s setting and because it provides the enhanced visibility for passing ships the Navy wanted.
- Rough weather has only closed the bridge three times in its history, on December 1, 1951, because of gusts of 69 mph (111 km/h); on December 23, 1982, because of winds of 70 mph (113 km/h); and on December 3, 1983, because of wind gusts of 75 mph (121 km/h). Each time, the bridge weathered the storm and suffered no structural damage.
- The most morbid note connected to the bridge is that its 245 foot drop to San Francisco Bay has made it one of the most popular places to commit suicide in the world. By some estimates, almost 1,600 people have killed themselves by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, at a rate of about 1 death every 2 weeks. Around 1 in 50 jumpers survive the plunge.
The bridge is a significant pop-culture symbol in film & television. If the
Statue of Liberty and the
Empire State Building are what aliens and monsters destroy first when beginning a rampage along the east coast, then the Golden Gate Bridge is usually the go-to symbol for showing the destruction of the west coast.
Movies featured in the above video:
- 0:17 - 'It Came from Beneath the Sea' (1953) - The bridge is destroyed by a giant octopus.
- 0:27 - 'Superman: The Movie' (1978) - After an earthquake, a school bus nearly plummets off a damaged Golden Gate, but is rescued by Superman.
- 0:35 - 'A View To A Kill' (1985) - James Bond battles Max Zorin on and above the bridge.
- 0:45 - 'Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home' (1986) - Admiral Kirk's Klingon Bird of Prey almost crashes into the Golden Gate Bridge while bringing the humpback whales "George" and "Gracie" to communicate with an alien probe.
- 0:51 - 'Flight of the Navigator' (1986) - The alien ship flies through the suspension cables.
- 0:57 - 'The Rock' (1996) - F-18s begin an attack run against the forces holding Alcatraz.
- 1:01 - 'Hulk' (2003) - The Incredible Hulk battles F-22s from the bridge.
- 1:11 - 'The Core' (2003) - In the (scientifically inaccurate) science of the film, the bridge is destroyed by sunlight after the collapse of Earth's magnetic field.
- 1:27 - 'X-Men: The Last Stand' (2006) - Magneto destroys the bridge by ripping it from its foundation.
- 1:51 - 'Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus' (2009) - The bridge is destroyed by a giant shark
- 1:57 - 'Monsters vs. Aliens' (2009) – A monster/alien robot fight takes place at the bridge.
- 2:14 - 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' (2011) - Caesar leads his forces into a climatic final battle on the bridge.
- 2:38 - 'Terminator: Salvation' (2010) - A partially destroyed Golden Gate Bridge is seen, with Skynet's installation nearby it.
- 2:50 - 'The Book of Eli' (2010) - Eli (Denzel Washington) and Solara (Mila Kunis) cross a ravaged Golden Gate Bridge to meet survivors living on Alcatraz Island.
- 3:02 - 'Bicentennial Man' (1999) - A second tier roadway has been added to the bridge.
- 3:07 - 'Star Trek' (2009) - The "space-laser drill" from Nero's ship fires into San Francisco Bay adjacent to the bridge.
- 3:17 - 'Land of the Lost' (2009) - Pieces of the bridge are seen existing inside another dimension.
'Electric Dreams' (1984)
'Electric Dreams' is a cult film from the '80s, set in San Francisco and centered around a man's personal computer falling in love with the same woman he has eyes for. The Golden Gate Bridge appears at the end of the film during the denouement featuring "Together in Electric Dreams" by Phil Oakey (of the Human League).
'Vertigo' (1958)
In Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo,' Madeleine (Kim Novak) jumps into the sea at Fort Point, underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.
"Star Trek"
In the "Star Trek" universe, Starfleet is headquartered in the Presidio and Fort Baker. As mentioned above, there are many shots of the Golden Gate Bridge in both the Trek movies and most of the television series.
The bridge is severely damaged in the seventh season of "Deep Space Nine," in an attack during the Dominion War.
