Photos: Wayne Bowen and Maria Caluag

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of San Francisco's favourite tourist attractions. Spanning the entrance to one of the world's finest natural harbours, the bridge has become one of America's most photographed and famous landmarks.

Everyday, thousands of cars cross the elegant red-coloured toll bridge, which connects the city of San Francisco to Marin County across the Golden Gate strait, after which the bridge is named. It is also open to walkers, joggers and cyclists, who are allowed to cross for free. It's a strenuous walk often made more challenging by the stiff breeze that sometimes whip across the structure. Luckily there are simple but well-appointed rest-rooms on either side of the span.

The recent terror threats mean that the bridge is also regularly patrolled. The survellaince tends to be very unobtrusive though. Police on bicycle and foot patrol ever so often and tend to be polite. While the occassional military vehicle can be spotted from time to time.

A ferry passes below the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay. Huge delays accessing ferries across the harbour in 1919 hastened calls for a bridge to be built across the strait known as the 'Golden Gate'.

The bridge has become, dubiously a popular spot for people trying to commit suicide. In an attempt to curb this, telephone hotlines connected to counsellers can be found along the walk. Efforts have also been made in some places to make it harder to jump off with wire netting and other barriers. In spite of this more than 800 people have killed themselves by jumping off the bridge since it was opened to the public in the late 1930s. It is a big drop - 265 feet above the waterline. While hitting the water from so high probably feels more like slamming into concrete, a few people have actually survived the plunge.

Much of the shipping goes to the busy Oakland port, which is connected to San Francisco by another huge bridge called the 'Bay Bridge.' The many gantries and cranes at Oakland are supposed to have inspired one of the military machines in the 'Star Wars' movies - The four-legged giant 'robot-like' machines controlled by 'pilots' inside.
A Park extends for miles on slivers of land either side of Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge is visible from many of the park's attractions, which include nature trails, beaches, forts dating back to Spanish colonial times and also the infamous prison island of Alcatraz in the middle of the bay. In its heyday, Alcatraz was said to be an escape-proof maximum-security penitentiary where America's worst criminals were detained.

Pedestrians walk on the Golden Gate Bridge

Before the bridge was built, people would cross the bay via ferry. During a holiday in 1919, a huge traffic jam developed and the police could barely keep order as waiting times stretched to as long as 18 hours for people wanting to cross
This situation ignited calls for a bridge to be built across the 'Golden Gate, an incredible engineering feat. It would need an earthquake-proof structure and such a long bridge had never been built before.

Many prominent people believed the proposed bridge building project was not only viable with uncountable long-term economic benefits, but it would also ease unemployment. As the movement for building grew stronger, the company that owned the ferry service fought the proposal by launching several hundred petty lawsuits aimed at preventing construction. The ferry was run as a virtual monopoly by the powerful South Pacific Railway Company. Eventually the company's tactics were exposed and when San Franciscans threatened to boycott the railway, they withdrew their suits and the city moved towards building a bridge.

It was estimated that to build such a structure would require US$35 million. To get the money, the city fathers had a unique idea - they asked the citizens to lend it to them? A vote was taken and the people unanimously agreed to a plan which sew all the houses and buildings in San Francisco being put up as collateral to back a loan bond issue the city intended to float to raise the money.

Construction started in January 1933 with a ceremonial driving of a golden stake after which several people lining up to get work. The unions were able to get a lot of safety measures built into the way the construction was undertaken and when the project ended, only a third of the estimated worker deaths had occurred. It was the first time that a construction site in the US issued safety hardhats to all workers. It was the first time safety-belts were widely used to help minimise deaths from falling. There were also safety nets installed 50 feet below the construction so that each man could be confident that if he did lose footing, there wouldn't be a plunge to the death. The nets saved almost two dozen lives.

While the work forged ahead of schedule however, a mystery illness affected many of the workers. They would get dizzy spells - dangerous when working at heights and also suffered hair and tooth loss. Scientists discovered that a chemical reaction between the hot rivets and the steel led to the release of poisonous gases and face-masks were issued.
The bridge was eventually completed in 1937 - the longest bridge in the world - and a special commemorative golden rivet was hammered in to declare it open. Newspapers reported as many as 200,000 people walking across the bridge on opening day. It was opened to vehicular traffic the next day and celebrations continued for more than a week afterwards with daily float parades and marching band displays. Since then, more than a billion cars have crossed the bridge. And by the 1970s enough money had been collected to repay the loan taken by the city to construct the bridge. Today, over US$60,000 is collected by the city in Golden Bridge tolls each day.

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