San Francisco is known for the long red bridge, called the Golden Gate. This iconic bridge was constructed from 1933 to 1937. Last year was the bridge’s 75th anniversary.
The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District was made to build the bridge in 1928. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 caused the district to be unable to raise the construction money, eventually in 1932, Amadeo Giannini said he would buy the entire thing to help the economy along with his bank. He was the founder of the Bank of America. Official construction started in 1933 on January 5th. Joseph Strauss was the engineer in charge of the construction and did the main design of the bridge though Leon Moisseff designed the suspension because of Strauss’ lack of cable- suspension knowledge. Strauss used safety nets that saved lots of lives.
The bridge was completed in April of 1937. The red colored paint was originally supposed to be just a protective coat and then it was going to be painted, but locals persuaded the painters to keep it the red color.
I think this bridge is iconic and a well known American landmark. The one thing that surprised me was the number of suicides and suicide attempts at the bridge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge
http://goldengatebridge.org/research/ConstructionTimeline.php
Comments
Good but brief overall.