It’s not red, although you’re not crazy to think so. “The bridge had been an idea since the mid-19th century but people thought that it was impossible to build. “It’s a three-mile-long and one-mile wide body of water that connects the Pacific Ocean to the San Francisco Bay. “The Golden Gate Bridge gets its name because it spans what is called the Golden Gate Strait,” said Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, spokesman for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, which operates the bridge. ![]() ![]() Why Is It Called The Golden Gate Bridge? It’s Not Golden. ![]() I love it out here.”ĬNN Travel spent a day climbing into and around the bridge, learning these 10 secrets from the people who know and love it best. “My favorite part is just to be able to say that I work on the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful sight,” he said. “When the moon is behind the bridge in the morning, it’s really nice and it’s really calm, clear skies. Ironworker Darren McVeigh loves to see the bridge when the sun is rising or setting. “You get those nice days where it’s 75 degrees out here and it’s clear, and you can see the Farallons (islands), I could see Alcatraz, I could see the whole city,” says bridge painter Brian Russell.”If we have a job on the cables, you get to walk the cables and you’re all like, “you know what I have a pretty cool job.'” The bridge officially opened on May 27, 1937, painted in its gleaming new hue.An icon of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Golden Gate Bridge is more than a means for drivers to cross between the city of San Francisco and Marin County to the north.Ī grand presence in California since it first opened after four years of construction in 1937 at a cost of $27 million, the bridge has made its appearance in film (“The Maltese Falcon” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”) and poetry (“The Changing Light” by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti) and contributed to local folklore.Īnd yet it’s also a working bridge, with about 200 employees working around the clock maintaining the bridge for more than 100,000 cars crossing daily, as well as pedestrians, bikers and people riding the bridge’s ferries and buses.įrom the engineers and ironworkers and electricians who maintain the bridge to the painters who keep it coated in International Orange, there’s as much life under and around the bridge as there is moving over it. ![]() Architect Irving Morrow rejected the idea (along with the commonly used gray and silver), settling on the vivid “International Orange” after seeing the bridge primed in a vermillion hue and believing the color would complement the surrounding landscape while providing high visibility. Navy recommended a black and yellow-striped design intended to increase visibility for ships and airplanes operating in foggy weather. When it came time to choose a hue for the paint two years into the build - a necessity to prevent rust on the steel caused by the underlying salt water - there was no obvious choice. Despite a hefty $35 million bill amid the Great Depression, the bridge project broke (underwater) ground in 1933. The idea of connecting parts of California’s Marin County with San Francisco via a bridge dates back to 1869, but plans for the architectural wonder didn’t take shape until 1916. The Golden Gate Bridge is the most recognizable part of San Francisco’s misty skyline, but the iconic structure was almost painted an entirely different hue.
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