San Francisco Reader

The Golden Gate Bridge was opened to pedestrians on May 27, 1936, serving as a capstone to more than a century of waiting to span the Golden Gate Strait. The Strait was christened Chryopylae (“Golden Gate”) by John Charles Frmont in 1846, when he was reminded of a similar harbor in Istanbul known as Chrysoceras (“Golden Horn”).When it was built, the Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world. More than 70 years later, it is now the second-longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, one of the modern Wonders of the World according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, and “certainly the most photographedbridge in the world” according to the Frommers travel guide.Today, most people will have seen the Golden Gate before they ever make it to the city, thanks to its status as one of the most distinctly American landmarks. The Bridge has been featured in films ranging from A View to a Kill (the fourteenth James Bond film) to It Came From Beneath the Sea (a 1955 B-science fiction movie).However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make it a point to still find your way to the bridge and take in the amazing view from its side. Plus, it’s the only way to truly appreciate the majesty of the engineering. The origins of the design come from Joseph Strauss, a structural engineer/poet who had designed a 55-mile railroad bridge across the Bering Strait. However, he had produced no actual bridges on the scale of the proposed Golden Gate project.While Strauss was chief engineer in charge of design, other individuals were brought in to counter his lack of experience. Irving Morrow designed elements like the towers and the lighting scheme, as well as choosing the International Orange color for the paint (after being persuaded by local residents). Charles Ellis was in charge of the basic structural design, and implemented a “deflection theory” which would allow the roadway to flex in the wind. A similar design for the original Tacoma Narrows bridge ended in disaster, but the Golden Gate has withstood the test of time. What is perhaps the first major retrofitting projects is currently in progressseismic retrofitting designed to improve the Bridge’s resistance to earthquake activity. The Doyle Drive highway leading up to the bridge through the San Francisco Presidio is also being redesigned to accommodate the more than 91,000 vehicles that pass through it each weekday.