What's up Steemit friends! Today I'm showing you some interesting facts behind the architectural wonder - Golden Gate Bridge, based on my trip to San Francisco, USA(all photos from myself), inspired by @aaronli's A City a Story photo contest themed "Bridge". Also, @kimzwarch and his team is running a cool project -- Archisteem & Placestoremember. Check out their pages and join the fun!
Outlook & Location 外观 & 环境
First, let's see how this beloved symbol of San Francisco looks like during daytime when it's sunny. It was a warm clear day when I took these photos, which was not so common according to my local hosts. Since this area is often shrouded in heavy fog, the consulting architect Irving Morrow selected an orange vermilion color (aka. international orange) to enhance the bridge's visibility in fog and to complement the natural surroundings. Because the bay was always covered in fog, the early European explorers who sailed along the coast in the 16th century didn't even notice its entrance. Only after 200 years, another exploration party finally found the strait. This popular foggy bridge has even been closed three times because of weather.
今天要带大家一起看看美国西海岸旧金山这座世界闻名的拉索大桥 -- 金门大桥。先来两张风和日丽时拍下的照片。听当地的沙发主人们说，这种阳光和煦的日子并不常见，通常大桥都是笼罩在浓雾之中。因为海湾这里总是雾蒙蒙一片，能见度低，建筑师欧文莫罗就给大桥外观选择了独特的橙红色（国际橙色），方便人们雾里看桥，也好和周遭的绿树青山相映成趣。由于湾区这里总是被笼在雾气中，早期16世纪的欧洲探险者航行到这片海域时，竟然都没留意到这里有个入口（好一个笼在深雾人不识）。直到200年后的18世纪，另外一个探险队才终于发现了这个海峡。金门大桥还曾因为恶劣的天气难以通行而被关闭过三次。 不用自行脑补这大雾弥漫的场景，下面有图有真相。=)
Here's a postcard I bought at the souvenir shop to mail to my mom. Together with the following two photos done by professional photographers, you can see the spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset and at night:
从下面我买的明信片和专业摄影师拍的照片上，可以一窥金门大桥在黄昏和夜晚时的美景。看到全景照第一张里排山倒海的大雾了吗？
当时写完明信片我就赶紧拍照取证，因为在那之前寄回家的明信片有的没收到，最后我都不记得寄过什么了，旅途教训啊~
This famous bridge connects San Francisco with Marin County of California to the north. But it's almost mission impossible to build a bridge like this in the early 20th century. Why? Look at the strait that connects the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean (see the map below), let me tell you - it is over 2000 meters wide, and the water is 150 meters deep in the center! And its water is subject to strong, swirling currents due to the tides moving in and out of the bay. Together with the gusting winds and heavy fog here, you can imagine how hard it is to build a bridge across the Golden Gate (this name was given by an American explorer because it reminded him of the "Golden Horn" near Istanbul) during that period of time.
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History & Statistics 历史 & 数据
After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, San Francisco quickly became a major city with its fine harbor and great location out on a peninsula. And its growth was slowed by the lack of bridge as it's developing. In 1916, a proposal for a bridge prompted San Francisco's city engineer, Michael M. O'Shaughnessy to make his estimate. At last, the bridge engineer Joseph Strauss came up with a sturdy cantilever bridge design, with an estimated cost of $17 million.
However, no budget was available for this bridge until 1928 when the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District was formed to actually finance it. In 1929, the new design was finally set after some consulting engineers suggested to modify Joseph Strauss's cantilever bridge to a full suspension bridge with sweeping lines. In the January of 1933, the construction began, and it was completed in 1937 at a cost of $35 million, twice of the initial cost predicted by Strauss. It was the longest suspension bridge in the world until 1964 when Japan's Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge was built. In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers named the bridge one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
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Once a poet described the Golden Gate Bridge as:
A cruve of soaring steel, graceful and confident over infinity.
What a beautiful description of this architectural marvel! Miles of wire, tons of steel, thousands of rivets were used in building this astonishing beauty. Now let's check out the staggering statistics:
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Fun & Sad Facts 奇闻轶事
As I mentioned earlier, the architect Irving Morrow, selected the International Orange color to paint the whole bridge. In fact, this color was originally meant only to be a sealant for the steel. Thanks to him, the unique color has contributed to the popularity of this most photographed bridge.
The bridge's deck was very high, so Joseph Strauss designed a safety net suspended under the bridge to catch the construction crew who could possibly lose their balance. This net did save several lives, but near the end of construction in 1937, a 5-ton work platform fell from the bridge into the net along with 10 workers. Sadly, the safety net gave way and the workers drowned.
Nowadays the tragedy still happens, but not by accident. There are suicide hotline telephones on the bridge, since around 30 depressed souls commit suicide by jumping off the span each year. And the heavy fog and strong currents make dead bodies unnoticed.
Ellis, a key member of the design team who designed “every nut and bolt on the darn thing” was fired part way through the project by Strauss, but he was obsessed with the bridge, and continued working on its necessary calculations by hand on his own time. This is true love.
The cables of Golden Gate Bridge were made by the same company that built the Brooklyn Bridge(fuzzily pictured below) of New York City. Strong cables were needed to support the structure and bend long in the crazy winds, so Strauss turned to the expert company which made the cables for the Brooklyn Bridge 52 years earlier. They developed a method called parallel wire construction for Golden Gate Bridge.
The equally famous Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge. It's a pity that I didn't take any decent photos of the Brooklyn Bridge at night when I went through it. What I could find now is only a blurry tourist photo shot on it, so here it is, together with my tourist photo in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. Sorry I only got unnatural boring posing photos by random passerby's when traveling alone there, haha. Or try some selfies like this lovely girl:
I also did a post before about the amazing old bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, check it out if you are interested. =)
西海岸这座金门大桥让我想到了美帝另外一座同样有名的大桥，那就是东海岸纽约的布鲁克林大桥。这两座桥的拉索也来自同一家公司（上面英文有提到，有空我会翻译）。可惜当时几次都是晚间匆匆经过，没有好好拍大桥，只找到一张请路人帮忙拍的傻乎乎的游客照（上方右图）。左图为另一张傻乎乎的金门大桥前的游客照。一个人的旅行比较难有自然瞬间的照片，大都是找路人帮忙摆拍，只能对着镜头傻笑，其中甘苦我在这个帖子里提到过，哈哈。或者也可以像上图中那个可爱的小女孩一样陶醉自拍~ ;)
还曾经写过波黑的一座很有味道的老桥，有兴趣的也可以看看~
Thank you for reading. Please tell me what you think in the comments. Until next time! =)
感谢阅读！你的关注/点赞/留言/转发就是对我最好的支持~ 下次见！:)
Here are some screenshots from my Instagram. Follow @ItchyfeetDonica for more adventures around the globe !
!steemitworldmap 37.807632 lat -122.476094 long Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco d3scr