CALIFORNIA: SAN FRANCISCO'S

GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

by Lee Foster

San Francisco celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge in colorful festivities in May 1987. Each day, thousands of travelers engage in a parallel, private ceremony of affection for the Bridge.

Echoing the national attention surrounding the Statue of Liberty unveiling, a TV presentation shared the fireworks and pageantry of the Golden Gate with Americans nationwide.

On that night, for the first time, lights shone on the two 746-foot orange-vermilion towers of the bridge. Permanent lighting was envisioned in the bridge's original plans, but the expense proved too great until 1987.

For those fortunate enough to be in the San Francisco area, the planned weekend festivities were elaborate. A Saturday morning Bridgefest showcased the culture, music, and foods of the Bay Area's many ethnic groups, especially those of the Pacific Rim. A Saturday night concert, managed partly by rock impresario Bill Graham, featured some of the country's leading entertainers, with proceeds going to the bridge lighting fund.

On Sunday morning the bridge closed to traffic from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. as people walked across it, re-enacting the opening in 1937, when 200,000 people crossed the bridge on foot. It was always possible to walk or bicycle across the bridge on the sidewalks along the edge, but for this occasion the entire roadway became a pedestrian lane. After the Bridgewalk, a Golden Mile Race across the bridge attracted world-class milers. Sunday afternoon's Golden Age of Transportation theme saw antique cars, parades of ships, and flybys of historic aircraft.

The object of all this adulation is one of America's best-loved landmarks. Whether seen from the south and north end visitor viewpoints or from special vantage points, such as the deck of a Blue and Gold Fleet excursion boat, the Golden Gate Bridge is a pleasing sight. The gracefulness of its suspension construction, the bridge's proportion alongside the green hills of Marin County to the north, and the orange-vermilion color of the bridge against the blue sky and sea add to the effect. The shiplane below the Golden Gate has become its own bridge to the orient, adding to the mystique of the site.

Building the bridge required both political vision and technical imagination. A San Francisco character of the 1860s, named Emperor Norton, is credited with the first public proposals for a bridge. In the 1870s railroad magnate Charles Crocker presented plans for a bridge. However, the task was enormous and public interest dwindled until 1916, when newspaperman James Wilkins launched an editorial campaign favoring a bridge. The idea appealed to North Bay residents who were transporting their cars across on time-consuming ferries. Spanning the Golden Gate, however, seemed more like a dream than a possibility. In 1917, San Francisco's chief engineer, M. M. O'Shaughnessy, enlisted the aid of a Chicago engineer, Joseph B. Strauss, to design and build the bridge.

Strauss followed the project attentively for the next two decades. A distinguished bridge builder, Strauss engineered over 400 bridges from Leningrad to New Jersey in his lifelong record. A statue at the south end of the bridge acknowledges his role as "The Man Who Built The Bridge."

The political hurdles required to build the bridge were considerable. In 1930 voters in the six counties making up the Bridge District approved issuing the bonds to finance it. This act required some vision as the nation waded through the Depression. In January 1933 Strauss broke ground for construction of the towers. Admirably, the bridge was built on time and under its $35 million budget, with the last bridge bond paid off in 1971. Today's toll goes entirely to maintaining the bridge, including its never-ending schedule of painting.

The first technical challenge in the 1930s construction involved the 4,200-foot length of the span, which many said could not be bridged successfully. Strauss weighed plans for a suspension bridge, which risked being too flimsy, and a cantilever bridge, which might be too heavy for the site. His original plans called for a design incorporating both ideas. From an aesthetic point of view, his later decision to focus just on the suspension approach proved far superior. At that time, a suspension bridge of this length had not yet been built.

The location of the bridge, bearing the full brunt of the ocean elements, exacerbated potential problems of design. Winds of 20-60 miles per hour are commonplace. A broadside wind at 100 miles per hour produces a midspan sway of 21 feet, which had to be allowed for. Heat and cold expansion and contraction of the bridge means a movement of 10 feet up and 10 feet down. The depth of the water underneath the bridge and the speed of the current were major technical challenges. Pacific tidal pressures are enormous in the narrow outlet, especially when the 7-1/2 knot tidal outrush combines with the swift-flowing waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers emptying through this gap into the ocean. Strauss decided to anchor one of the 65-story towers right in the waterway, 1,215 feet from shore.

The 36-1/2 inch cables manufactured for the bridge were the largest bridge cables ever made, incorporating 80,000 miles of wire about the thickness of a pencil. Each of the two cables has a tensile strength of 200 million pounds. During construction, Strauss paid particular attention to worker safety. It was assumed in bridge building that a worker would die for every million dollars worth of construction. The safety record was excellent until near the end of the project. A special net saved 19 men who fell at various times.

Pete Williamson, one of the bridge workers, recalled what it was like.

"I had to walk along those girders with nothing to hold onto," said Williamson, "balancing myself on 8-inch I-beams with only net and water underneath. The thought of walking the flanges scared the hell out of me. But I did it. I learned quickly that when the wind was blowing, which was all the time out there, you had to carry lumber on the side away from it. If you didn't, it could get hold of you and blow you into the drink."

The safety record remained excellent until 1936 when a falling beam crushed an iron worker. Unfortunately, another tragic incident, in February 1937, took 10 lives when a scaffolding with workers broke off. The weight of the scaffolding tore through the net, carrying the workers to their deaths below.

Over the years the bridge has set some remarkable and gruesome records. Over 100,000 cars a day cross it, joining San Francisco to Marin County and the redwood country to the north. By February 1986 the billionth car had driven across. More than 1,200 people have jumped suicidally to their death from the span.

The 1987 pageant of the Golden Gate Bridge also offered a powerful symbolic contrast with the 1986 festivities around the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty marked emancipation from the nation's European past. The Golden Gate Bridge shifted attention to the country's Pacific Rim future in the 21st Century.

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SAN FRANCISCO: IF YOU GO

The overall San Francisco information source for travelers is the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, 201 Third St., Suite 900, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415/974-6900. The web site is www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com.

This article was written by Lee Foster of Foster Travel Publishing. Contact him at his website www.fostertravel.com or via email at lee@fostertravel.com. Copyright Lee Foster.

Lee Foster's most recent travel guidebooks are Northern California History Weekends (Globe Pequot), which won a Lowell Thomas Award, and Adventure Guide to Northern California (Hunter Publishing).

Lee Foster's new literary book is Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time.

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