RON HENGGELER

July 29, 2007
Walking on the Bridge in summer's fog . . .

“When you drive in on a Sunday evening after a hot day in the country and catch that first glimpse of the white fog racing in shreds---as though torn from a giant Kleenex box! --- yes, flinging itself, Kleenix-like, through the cables of the world’s greatest if too narrow bridge, you know why you live here.”

Herb Caen

“There is no stupidity great enough to ruin the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge. It has been the subject of terrible poetry and worse paintings, but it rises easily and grandly above the mundane, its towers poking through the fogs, natural and man-made.”

Herb Caen

“A wall of thick, dirty fog rising genie-like from the Pacific, while a finger of whiter, puffier stuff feels its way into the bay, twisting this way and that till it conforms to every contour, snugly and coldly.”

Herb Caen

Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began on January 5, 1933 and the last rivet was placed on May 27, 1937. The bridge is 6, 450 ft. long and 90 ft. wide. The towers rise 746 ft. above the water and the height of the roadway span at center is 220 ft. above low tide. The main cables from which the span hangs (each 36.5 inches diameter and 7, 660 ft. long) are made up of 27, 572 strands of 0.2 inch diameter steel cable. . .22,000 tons worth and 80,000 miles long. This 0.2 inch cable could circle the globe at the equator more than five times. 693,000 cubic yards of concrete (enough for a sideway 10 ft. wide stretching from San Francisco to New York City) and 100,000 tons of steel were used in spanning the Gate. 25,000,000 man hours went into building the Golden Gate Bridge. . .eleven men lost their lives during its construction. The bridge, as designed, can sway 27.7 ft. during high winds. The paint color of the Golden Gate Bridge is International Orange. There are now well over a thousand known suicides who have jumped off the bridge since it opened in 1937. Nearly all these desperate souls who finally went over the side, did so facing towards San Francisco, but that is simply because pedestrians are not allowed on the opposite (Pacific Ocean) side of the span. Text by Ron Henggeler For more of my photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, click here:
http://www.ronhenggeler.com/San%20Francisco/Golden%20Gate%20Bridge/GGB_index.html

 

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