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"The
bridge that couldn't be built" opened in 1937, connecting San
Francisco and Marin Counties across the Golden Gate, a narrow
strait of water connecting the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco
Bay. The bridge is named for the strait of water, and not
its color, which while unique, is not gold at all, but
International Orange.
The bridge has
become a symbol of San Francisco, California and is even used as a
symbol of the United States, especially around the Pacific Rim.
While there was concern that the man-made structure would ruin the
natural beauty of the Bay Area, the Golden Gate Bridge has now
enhanced the region, and homes, apartments and hotel rooms with
bridge views are commonly more expensive than those
without.
The vaguely Art
Deco styled towers of the Golden Gate Bridge stand 746ft high, and
the bridge has a mid-span sway of 27ft off center to help it stand
against the winds that can move through the Golden Gate at speeds
up to 100mph. The main span of the bridge is 4,200ft long,
which made it the longest bridge in the world when it opened
(passing the record held for a year by its bay sister, the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge).
The bridge's
construction introduced many firsts in worker safety. The
prototype for the hard hat was first used in the construction of
this bridge, safety nets (which saved the lives of nineteen
workers) were premiered here, special diets to help workers fight
dizziness and sun protecting lotions were all used to make this
project as safe as possible for workers.
The bridge was the
subject of a controversial documentary, called The Bridge,
in 2004 that showed 23 of the 24 suicides from the bridge that
happened during that year. The bridge is the world's top suicide
destination, but proposals to add a suicide barrier have always
failed, not wanting to ruin the aesthetic qualities of the
structure. (The bridge also has no center divider for traffic
lanes, and is the site of several head-on collisions each year.)
The bridge is a
suspension bridge, meaning that the two large towers are
compression members that support the cables. The cables are used
as tension members, and the weight of the roadway is hung from
these. (The new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay
Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge, not a suspension bridge.)
Eleven men died
during the construction of the bridge, which took four and a half
years during the Great Depression.
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