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 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 ocean side of the span.

 

“Some people become San Franciscans almost immediately,  feeling the poetry,  sensing the specialness,  seeing what makes the city great and not so great,  boning up on the history and walking the streets with glamorous ghosts at their elbows.  Others can live here all their lives and never get the message.”

Herb Caen

 

 

The red-orange color of the Golden Gate Bridge is somewhat of an accident. When the towers were constructed, they were coated in the red-orange primer, which was extended to the rest of the bridge as the work continued. Designers of the bridge liked the way the distinctive color complimented the hills of Marin County and provided a contrast to the fog that swirled through the towers, so the bridge remained International Orange. It also increases the visibility of the bridge in fog. The top coat of orange is replaced constantly because the auto exhaust and chilly, salty air eats away at the finish . A team is employed fulltime to apply about two tons of the coloring per week to keep the paintwork in good condition and prevent the bridge from rusting. It takes four years to apply one coat. The job is not for the faint-hearted. Painters have to be able to climb to the top of the bridge’s 746- foot towers and routinely brave 30-mile-per-hour winds.  

from SAN FRANCISCO SECRETS 

by John Snyder  1999 Chronicle Books

 

 

 

 

They park the car by the Marina.
The surface of the cobalt bay
Is flecked with white. The moister, keener
October air has rinsed away
The whispering mists with crisp intensity
And over the opaque immensity
A deliquescent wash of blue
Revels the bridge, long lost to view
In summer’s quilt of fog: the towers
High built, red-gold, with their long span
--The most majestic spun by man--
Whose threads of steel through mists and showers,
Wind, spray, and the momentous roar
Of ocean storms, link shore to shore.  

     
From  THE GOLDEN GATE  

by  Vikram Seth (1986)

Beginning construction on the controversial and long-awaited suicide barrier

 

 

 

"San Francisco is the genius of American cities.  It is the wild-eyed,  all-fired,  hard-boiled,  tender-hearted,  white-haired boy of the American family of cities.  It is the prodigal son.  The city which does everything and is always forgiven,  because of its great heart,  its gentle smile,  its roaring laughter,  its mysterious and magnificent personality.   There are no end of ways of enduring time in San Francisco,  pleasantly,  beautifully,  and with the romance of living in everything.  Eat any kind of dish the races of the world know how to prepare.  Drink any kind of wine you like.  Go to the opera.  The symphony or a stage play.  Loaf around in the high-toned bars,  or in the honky-tonks.  Sail the bay.  If you are alive you can’t be bored in San Francisco.  If you’re not alive,  San Francisco will bring you to life.  San Francisco is a world to explore.  It is a place where the heart can go on a delightful adventure.  It is a city in which the spirit can know refreshment every day. “

(circa 1891)

 

 

 

 

 

 

For all its contradictions. . . San Francisco remains a beacon,  always with that dangerous streak of insanity,  built in at birth.   

Herb Caen

 

 

If you’re going to San Francisco,
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
If you’re goin’ to San Francisco, 
You’re gonna meet some gentle people there.

For those who come to San Francisco,
Summertime will be a love-in there.
In the streets of San Francisco,
Gentle people with flowers in their hair.

All across the nation,
Such a strong vibration: People in motion.
There’s a whole generation,
With a new explanation,  People in motion,  People in motion.

If you come to San Francisco,
Summertime will be a love-in there.

SAN FRANCISCO 

by John Phillips 1967

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The steel door at the base of the south tower that opens onto a workman's elevator

San Francisco glimpsed through the fog

A traffic jam of bicyclers waiting to get on the Golden Gate Bridge

 

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point

“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