1. Conceiving a bridge that spanned across the San Francisco Bay proved to
be much easier than actually building it. Starting way back in In 1920, three accomplished
engineers, Joseph B. Strauss, Francis C. McMath, and Gustav Lindenthal,
received letters inviting them to submit designs and bids for the new bridge
project. Strauss thought he could build the symmetrical cantilever-suspension
hybrid bridge for a price tag of between $17 and $27 million.
2. A commission set up to coordinate the build kept the design hidden from
the public for a year. But when Strauss’s plan did come to light, the sentiment
was not favorable, as the local press called it ugly, with one writer
describing it as “a ponderous, blunt bridge that combined a heavy tinker toy
frame at each end with a short suspension span. It seemed to strain its way
across the Golden Gate.”
3. Strauss eventually altered his design plans (though, tragically, he
never received money nor credit for designing the bridge), but funding the
project was another challenge, as very little state or federal money was
available. Most of the cost of the bridge was raised through $35 million in
bonds sold by the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District. Local San Francisco
residents even put their homes, farms, and businesses up as collateral.
4. Even approving the plan to build the Golden Gate Bridge was a colossal
undertaking that took years of favorable court rulings, two Federal hearings,
an act of State legislature, mass boycotts and a guarantee that local workers
would be used.
5. There was huge opposition to the bridge’s construction, with 2,300
lawsuits filed against the bridge and its subsidiaries in 1930 alone. The
Southern Pacific Railroad was a huge opponent because they had a majority stake
in the ferry that took commuters across the bay.
6. Even the U.S. War Department was dubious about the project, since they
thought Navy ships would be trapped inside San Francisco Bay if the bridge was
ever bombed or collapsed. In fact, the War Department owned the land on both
sides of where the bridge touched land, so it took six years for them to
approve construction and issue the permit.
7. In the midst of construction, an earthquake struck the area, causing the
half-completed bridge to sway more than 15 feet side to side. A dozen workers
were stuck high up on the South Tower during the quake, stranded because the
elevator wouldn’t run, all of them hanging on for dear life and throwing up
repeatedly from the vertigo.
8. Construction of The Golden Gate Bridge marked a new era in construction
safety. Before the bridge’s build, a rule of thumb for building bridges was to
expect a worker fatality for every $1 million it costs. But instead of 35
worker fatalities ($35 million), only 11 worker fatalities took place.
Requiring workers to wear hard hats (the first such practice in America) and
safety nets suspended below the bridge deck helped save the lives of 19
workers, who called themselves the “Halfway to Hell Club.”
9. The Golden Gate Bridge has only been closed a few times during its
history, including for anniversaries, construction work, and in honor of
visiting dignitaries.
But the longest unplanned closure was on December 3, 1983, when 75 mph
winds shut down the bridge for three hours and 27 minutes until it was safe to
cross it again.
10. Until 1960, The Golden Gate was the longest suspension bridge in the
word. That year, Japan's Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge gained that honor with a span of
6,500 feet. But the Golden Gate still wins the award for the most photographed
bridge in the world.
11. On February 22, 1985 the one-billionth driver crossed the Golden Gate
Bridge. The lucky motorist, a dentist named Dr. Arthur Molinari, was greeted by
fanfare, media, given a special hard hat and a case of champagne.
12. However, another seminal event – the bridge’s 50th
anniversary on May 24, 1987 – was a complete disaster. A crowd of 50,000 people
was expected to show up for the ceremony, but more than 800,000 well wishers
and spectators attended! With all of
that weight, the bridge started to sag in the middle and a 17 mph wind started
swaying it side to side, creating mass panic in the crowd, many of whom became
nauseas or claustrophobic in the thick crowd. Soon, the entire bridge flattened
and the arch disappeared under the greatest load it carried in its 50 years of
existence. But according to engineers, there was no reason for concern since
the bridge was designed to move up to 15 feet vertically and 27 feed side to
side, and even a maximum weight load would only put 40% stress on the
suspension cables.
13. The Golden Gate Bridge has appeared in more than two-dozen movies,
including The Maltese Falcon (1941), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978),
Interview with the Vampire (1994), The Rock (1998), and San Andreas (2015). Unfortunately,
the bridge is often the target of destruction by aliens, attacking foreign
armies, or cataclysmic natural disasters.
14. The bridge holds the dubious distinctions as the top destination for
suicides in the world. That macabre track record started only three months
after it opened in 1937, when a man named H.B. Wobber took a bus to the bridge,
casually told the other passengers that this was where he got off, climbed the
rail and jumped.
Since then, there have been more than 1,500 suicides from the Golden
Gate, an average of one suicide every three weeks. Even though they hit the
freezing cold water at 75 mph, more than 30 jumpers have actually survived the
fall, and there are now 11 crisis counseling phones along the span.
15. The Golden Gate is such an imposing structure that it actually impacts
the weather patterns in the bay and city, particularly the famous San Francisco
fog. In fact, the bridge redirects the
fog stream up and over or down under the bridge, effectively separating high
pressure from low as fog crosses its path.
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