Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
since (although now it's the second-longest in the country). It cost $26 million—
less today than what it would cost to destroy it in an action movie, as so often
happens. On the big day, cars paid 50¢, and pedestrians surrendered a nickel to
thrill to the sight of the deadly swirl of rushing currents far below. In an era when
strides in steel and engineering measured a country's worth, this was a potent sym-
bol of power. And it still impresses; it's tough to look down from its span and
watch the waters roil angrily without being a little thankful that the wonders of
engineering have the ability to make modern life so comfortable.
The bridge also has a dark side; it's the site of a suicide every one or two weeks.
(See the documentary
The Bridge
[2006] for a troubling look at some of them.)
The bridge is not named for its color—it's red, after all, not yellow—or even
after the miners of old, but for the channel below, which was originally named by
knowing sailors after the treacherous Golden Horn in Turkey. Depending on the
weather or the time of day, the stately bridge presents a different personality. That
mutable color, known to its 38 ever-busy painters as “international orange,” can
appear salmon in daylight or clay red as the sun goes down. (It was originally
going to be gunmetal gray, like the Bay Bridge, but folks fell in love with the red
hue of the primer coat.) Wisely, the architects worked wonders in figuring out
how to integrate the bridge with the landscape and not obliterate everything that
led up to it, as usually happened in the 1930s. Consequently, getting a good snap
of the thing isn't as easy as you'd think. Don't assume that just because the
weather's clear where you're standing means that it's also clear at the bridge.
Meteorological conditions around the mouth of the Bay never seem to match the
rest of the city, and even experienced tour guides have a hard time predicting what
the bridge conditions will be without looking at it first, but you can preview the
cloud cover by going to the Golden Gate Bridge website, where there's a live web-
cam. Just know that winds seem to be strongest in winter; all 3 days that the
bridge has ever had to close due to high winds fell in December.
GETTING ONTO THE BRIDGE ITSELF
There's a pathway across the east
side of the bridge for pedestrians (5am-9pm in summer, 5am-6pm in winter)
that is on the best side for fantastic city views (the other side takes in the Pacific),
but as you can imagine, it gets crowded on weekends. Cars must pay 10 times
what they once did—a toll of $5 when they drive into the city on the bridge (driv-
ing out is free)—but these days, bicyclists and pedestrians pay nothing. Of the
two, I'd pick wheels every time, because the bridge isn't easy to reach on foot, as
its entry on the San Francisco side is tangled up among the confusing and
unfriendly roadways of the Presidio. The six-lane bridge, built to 1937 propor-
tions, isn't the easiest or safest place to take photographs from your car, although
plenty of tourists snarl traffic in the effort. Instead, planners have also been intel-
ligent enough to construct a viewing deck, complete with a restroom, at the
bridge's northern end that is accessible no matter from which direction you're
coming on the 101. I prefer using it on the way into town, because visitors from
southbound traffic must use a walkway that goes underneath the bridge, giving
them a unique second perspective of its structural underpinnings. Try to show up
earlier in the day, when the sun is unlikely to ruin your shots. If you do go on the
bridge, for an extra thrill, be in the middle when a boat goes underneath;
