The Golden Gate Bridge: History, Impact and Legacy

 The Golden Gate Bridge: History, Impact and Legacy

As Golden Gate Bridge Turns 75, History Revised to Honor Engineer

GWEN IFILL: Finally this evening, the Golden Gate Bridge, an icon of American engineering and architecture, turns 75 today. Its effect, its heritage as well as some of the controversy that initially surrounded it are as soon as again the center of attention.

NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels has our tale.

SPENCER MICHELS: Even before it opened on May 27, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge was hailed as a modern-day wonder, a magnificent feat of engineering. In the midst of the Great Depression, the bridge, then the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world, brought hope and pride to a city and a country in need of optimism. It was far more than a street connecting San Francisco with counties to the north.

KEVIN STARR, chronicler, University of Southern California: This is not simply a completely successful work of engineering. It's likewise a work of art, and it's also a renowned statement about American life, American possibilities.

SPENCER MICHELS: Historian Kevin Starr specializes in California history and has actually written a brand-new book on the Golden Gate Bridge, tracing its roots to the modern motion.

KEVIN STARR: At the core of progressivism was a delight in public works, public works to complete the work of nature, public works to develop employment, public works to make a much better society. It was a victory of American civilization.

It embodied the idea that a commercial culture might develop something that was also gorgeous and represented a form of environmental stewardship.

SPENCER MICHELS: The Golden Gate, the impressive, commonly shrouded entrance to San Francisco Bay, was a tough place to construct and still would be, according to author John Van der Zee, who chronicled the bridge's tale.

JOHN VAN DER ZEE, author, "The Gate": This is an area of high winds, thick fogs, a tidal existing that runs at 6 knots an hour. It's sturdy enough to turn a full-sized ship entirely around.

SPENCER MICHELS: But those weren't the only challenges, states Kevin Starr.

KEVIN STARR: Nothing is easy in San Francisco. The Sierra Club thought it profaned the website. Older San Franciscans just didn't like it due to the fact that it had not been component of Mother Nature.
The Golden Gate Ferry Company, owned by the Southern Pacific, naturally didn't wish to quit its monopoly on some 50,000 comings and goings on the ferry system. The War Department was insistent that specific criteria be met that would not obstruct the harbor, in case the bridge were ever bombed.

SPENCER MICHELS: Ansel Adams, who also opposed the bridge, photographed the Golden Gate before the bridge was constructed. His image is on screen at the California Historical Society, where Anthea Hartig is executive supervisor.

ANTHEA HARTIG, California Historical Society: But he grew to accept it. And then the shot behind us, which I like, this is a photo he absorbed 1953 that was I think his kind of concerning peace.

SPENCER MICHELS: For the 75th anniversary, the Historical Society has put together an exhibit of bridge souvenirs, which includes reminders of the controversy that divided the city between opponents and those who supported it.

ANTHEA HARTIG: Every car association in every automobile dealership in 9 counties around the bay were, obviously, for the bridge, due to the fact that it generated automobiles and it brought in people's movements. It was a wonderful historic argument.

SPENCER MICHELS: That argument isn't over yet, even as the birthday party revs up.
One aspect of the 75th birthday event that wasn't in the plans was the rekindling of an old debate. Who should get the credit for structure and making this magnificent bridge? The first design, from 1922, revealed a bulky unsightly bridge, part cantilever, component suspension. It was the work of Chicago bridge contractor Joseph Strauss, who had chosen his legacy would be a period to equal the Brooklyn and George Washington bridges in New York.

However Strauss had not been a civil engineer. He was a contractor of drawbridges, a marketer and host. And he arranged a decades-long project to get the Golden Gate Bridge approved and constructed by him. Prior to construction started, Strauss' cumbersome design was scrapped, though he stayed as chief engineer. In its location was a sleeker framework made possible by University of Illinois engineer Charles Ellis and Leon Moisseiff, who had actually made the Manhattan bridge.