A deep dive into the weird and wonderful history of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
Whether you ’re watchingA purview to a Kill , visiting San Francisco , or just opening Instagram , it ’s light to rule a perspective of the orange - ish curve of the Golden Gate Bridge . The famous suspension bridge circuit cross the Golden Gate strait , a mile - wide epithelial duct that unite the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean and connectsMarin Countyand thegems of the NorCal coastto San Francisco .
And while it is by many accounts the most photographed bridge in the world , there is still plenty to get wind about the history of this iconic California watershed . Here are 12 little - known facts about the Golden Gate Bridge .
1. It was almost a bumble bee bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge ’s particular shade of Orange River allows it to vex out from the surrounding cloud . This specific color , have a go at it as Golden Gate Bridge International Orange , is unequaled to the landmark , and is a somewhat lighter tint than the orange that the aerospace industriousness uses for spacesuits .
But it almost had a very different look — the Navy want the bridge to be paint with yellow and sinister stripes , while the Army Air Corps requested confect cane red and white stripes . In the end , consulting designer Irving Morrow ’s imaginativeness won out : he lobby for this spook of orangeness to contrast with the ocean and sky , and to echo the red - dark-brown - orangeness of the Marin County hills at sunset . The added visibility in logy conditions was a bonus . Orange feel like the right option now , but it would be pretty charming to see that confect cane blusher problem around the holidays .
2. It’s a boy!
Three babies have been carry on the nosepiece over the years . Against the betting odds , all of them have been boy . Are you currently pregnant ? Maybe you may make history !
3. There’s a secret bridge club that’s not open to new membership
During construction in 1936 and 1937 , 19 men drop off of the bridge … and land in the purpose - make safety nets that they installed beneath the worksites . Ironworker Al Zampa establish a gild for the men who had taken this especial decease - defying tumble , which he called the Halfway to Hell Club .
“ There were ten of us that fall into the meshing those first few week . Four got hurt . I was one of them . We were in the hospital together . We take shape the club right there in St. Luke ’s Hospital , ” said Zampa , according to John V. Robinson ’s 2004 bookSpanning the Strait : make the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge . No unadulterated club roll has ever been published , but expert believe that Zampa was the old pull through member when he die at 95 in the year 2000 .
4. It wasn’t all built in California
The Golden Gate Bridge was once called “ the bridge that could never be make . ” Over the five - twelvemonth construction appendage , the famously strong tip , powerful tides , haze , and salt air in the Golden Gate Strait made for extremely difficult building conditions . But not everything was built on - situation : it took over 31 million work - hours in 134 cities across 20 states to complete the bridge . In February of 1996 , The American Society of Civil Engineers name the bridge one of the Wonders of the Modern World .
5. It was an economic boon, but also a major resource drain
Because of the amount of concrete that was used to make the bridgework itself , cement factories in the Eastern US that had been closed in the Great Depression were able-bodied to re - open up just to produce the concrete for the bridge . On a less inspirational note , the Grant Wood to make the frame which deem the concrete strike out whole forest in Oregon .
6. More than a billion people have driven across the bridge
On February 22 , 1985 , Dr. Arthur Molinari became the official one billionth number one wood to foil over the bridge circuit . Although it was n’t an exact scientific discipline : Molinari was chosen at random on the Clarence Day they calculate that machine driver number one billion would cross , but he still got a case of bubbly and a bridge - building hat .
7. For one day the bridge had a population of 300,000
In celebration of the bridge ’s 50th anniversary in 1987 , Mayor Dianne Feinstein presided over a pedestrian - only daylight , to mimic the day when the nosepiece was first opened and only pedestrians claim the initiative journey . The expected turnout was around 50,000 , but on May 24 , 1987 , some 300,000 people showed up to walk the bridgework , and another 500,000 or so were turned by out of business organisation that the bridge circuit would collapse under the weight .
The nosepiece held , but the roadway was reported to have flattened 7 to 10 foot from the normal convex shape of the bridge pack of cards . It was the great weighting the bridge had ever borne .
8. It’s known for a famous act of littering
At that fiftieth anniversary company , then - Mayor Feinstein wanted to befuddle a chaplet into the true laurel during the celebration . But in all the excitement around the monolithic outfit the lei was lost , so she take hold of a hat from someone else — excellently dapper local politician Willie Brown , who at that sentence was the State Assembly Speaker , and who would go on to become the Mayor . In distinctive Willie Brown mode , it was a Ferrari golf lid , in disgraceful .
9. The bridge had a distinctive designer
Joseph Strauss was the Golden Gate Bridge ’s designer . He was five feet magniloquent and amount to the project from Chicago . He was an challenging creative person and a dreamer , and his postgraduate thesis purport a bridge design to connect North America to Asia over the 55 - mile - wide Bering Strait . How meet that he go on to design one of the great ( and one of the largest ) feats of bridge applied science in history ( although the 1.7 geographical mile length of the Golden Gate Bridge pales in comparing to his imagined thesis bridge ) .
“ Our macrocosm of today . . . orb completely around thing which at one fourth dimension could n’t be done because they were supposedly beyond the limits of human try . Do n’t be afraid to dream!”he wrote of the project .
10. Who also had a flair for the dramatic
Strauss was also a poet , and he wrote a wholesale , dramatic , earnest poem upon the completion of the bridge to reward its role and the construction operation . He died only a yr after his masterpiece of a bridge was finished , and there is now a statue of him near the price booth on the San Fransisco side of the bridge .
Here ’s an excerpt :
“ At last the mighty project is done;Resplendent in the westerly sunThe Bridge hover mountain high;Its titan piers grip ocean flooring , Its great sword arms link shoring with shore , Its towers thrust the sky .
Flickr/Wilson Hui
On its broad deck of cards in rightful pride , The humanity in swift parade shall hinge on , Throughout all time to be;Beneath , fleet ships from every porthole , Brobdingnagian landlocked true laurel , historical fort , And dwarfing all — the sea . ”
The whole thing ishere , courtesy of Golden Gate Bridge , Highway , and Transportation District .
11. This bridge is a star, and an icon of disaster
The Golden Gate Bridge has been feature in tons of movies , and it ’s become a papa culture icon as well as an engineering darling . And from our unscientific research it may also be one of the most - destroy landmarks in the cinematic canyon : It seems like Hollywood writers almostwantthe bridge deck to collapse . moving picture fromGodzilla(2014 ) toIt Came Beneath the Sea(1955 ) toSuperman(1978 ) showcase the bridge being rend apart or founder in one mode or another .
Of course it has also been sport in safe movies , too . Cinefiles will recognize the nosepiece in Alfred Hitchcock’sVertigo(1958 ) , where it ’s used as a metaphor for the span between reality and illusion , and to symbolize emotional distance .
12. The origins of the Golden Gate are not as obvious as you think
While it ’s obvious that the Golden Gate Bridge got its name from the strait that it span , the Golden Gate strait may not have gotten its name the agency you think .
On July 1 , 1846 , Army Captain John C. Fremont gazed over this small waterbound link between the bay and the ocean and said it was a “ lucky gate ” to trade routes with the eternal rest of the man . And they had n’t even find gold in California yet — this was two long time before that find . Fremont give in his Geographical Memoir to the US Senate on June 5 , 1848 . In it he wrote : “ to this Gate I reach the name of ‘ Chrysopylae ' or ‘ Golden Gate ’ for the same cause that the harbor of Byzantium was call in Chrysoceras , or Golden Horn . ”
Flickr/Pat Bianculli
Flickr/Hans Brian Brandsberg Berg
