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The Magnificent Golden Gate Bridge · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hanging Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: and Jerry's hanging with us too, and it's Stuff you
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: should Know. And we're headed west and yeah that's so.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean we're recording on the Golden gate Bridge.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I guess this is like two weeks wow, two weeks
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to the day, I think, what from our live show
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: in the city of San Francisco.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: That's true because it's the fifteenth in our show's on
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the twenty ninth.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: That's right on a rare Thursday, oh show. Yeah yeah.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Oh by the way too, I meant to mention, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I hope this is okay with you. I got booked
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to do a show on Friday, and I haven't mentioned
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that to people, but on Friday, I will be performing
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: in the Hanging with Doctor z show.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Do you know Doctor Zayas?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you know about this?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: No? No, no, I don't know anything.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: This is the one in which comedian Dana gould Is.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: He owns a professional like full blown doctor Zais costume
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and he's been doing this for years and it's like
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a talk show with him as the host. Is doctor Zaiahs.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So I'm on that and I'm very excited because not
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: only is Janet Varney and it co founder of sketch
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Fest and dear friend, but Dave Foley. I get to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: be on stage with a kid in the hall.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: What and man, that's going to be amazing.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the great Andy Daly. So if anyone wants
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to see that on Friday night, just go to the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: sketch Fest website and check it out. I think it's
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: at kind of one of the small comedy.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Clubs, do you know? Okay, so it's it a comedy club.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one where I did movie Crush one year.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Though, Well do you remember how to find your way
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: back there? Though?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I hope so.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I hope so too. That's awesome, man, congrats, and yes,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I second that everybody should go see it. You're in
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: San Francisco or not, because I'm sure that's gonna be awesome.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you can come. I imagine you'll be
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: on a plane home huh yeah. Yeah all right, but
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: thank you.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I appreciate the invite. I'll be there in spirit supporting you.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: You text me immediately after and be like it was
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a triumph or no, it won't be anything but a triumph.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Alright. So Golden Gate Bridge.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why we started talking about California and San
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Francisco in the first place. Because if you don't bother
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to look at the titles of episodes and you just
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: let it roll one end of the other. That's what
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: we're talking about in this episode, the Golden Gate Bridge.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: There's a pretty good chance you know what we're talking about.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: It's often named as the most photographed bridge in the world.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I could believe that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's my second favorite. What's your first Brooklyn bridge? Man?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's got to be to bb Okay, all right,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: all right, what about you. I don't know. I don't
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: know that I have a favorite bridge. I kind of
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: like the ones that look like sailboats. There's a few
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of those.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are nice. A Tower Bridge in London is
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: also quite magnificent.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Sure, and then I'm gonna sound so obnoxious, But in Budapest.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: It's not obnoxious.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: No, just being like, what's your favorite bridge? Oh, mine's
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: in Budapest. No, but they have I think seven different
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: bridges and they went they did seven different designs for
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: all the bridges that go through the city and connect
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Buddha to Pest, right, And it really is like a
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: city of amazing bridges. They're all just really well done
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: and they're just different. It's cool.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I agree. I forgot about that well. Also, I mean,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: since we're shouting out bridges, we can't not talk about
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh because I went to a baseball game there in
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that beautiful stadium and you get those beautiful bridges there.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: It's lovely.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like eight Bridges Stadium. Yeah, I think so,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: is that right?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, eight or twelve I think they call it
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: eight or twelve Bridges Stadium.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: That does.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: So back to the Golden Gate. It's also, Chuck, one
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: of the seven Wonders of the modern World.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the American Society of Civil Engineers named it
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: one of the Bridges of the Millennium in two thousand.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So it's a well regarded bridge. And if you've always
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: wondered or always thought like, hey, I guess the Golden
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Gate bridge is called that because the I guess the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: weird orange color is roughly golden. I don't know, you
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: would be like me probably like you, chuck, and that
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: would mean you were wrong.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: That's right, because Golden Gate very much predates the construction
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of that bridge. And with that we come to our
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: first story.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna make like a horse sound while you
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: tell the story, so this guy will be riding a horse.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, you got two ads of coconuts and you're banging
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: them together. Eighteen forty six. This is the Mexican American wartime.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: It's going on, and there's an army officer in the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: United States named John Fremont who basically said without sounds like,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: without even asking anyone, hey, California's independent from Mexico. At
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: one point he was crossing the San Francisco Bay there
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: from Sonoma to San Francisco to fight the Mexican army there.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And he named that boy, you're really doing a great job.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: And he named that mile wide strait that connects the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: bay to the ocean. What would that be chrysophil.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: A can't stop.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Oh no, there he goes off into the sunset. I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: guess chrysophile which means Golden Gate. And later on, rather
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: than the Greek version, he went with the English and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: that passage was called the Golden Gate.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: That's right. So this is the bridge over the Golden Gate.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Right, did you know that? No? Not, I was yesterday
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: years old, as they.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Say, yep. So yeah. And the Golden Gate in particular
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: is pretty neat, not just because it's like the it
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean, but geographically
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: it's like three hundred feet deep right there, but on
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: the shelf in the Pacific side it's much shallower. And
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: then in the bay, so the bay is like an
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: average of fourteen feet deep or something crazy like that.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: So it just suddenly goes like this huge depression. And
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: this is what they needed to cross, like a three
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: hundred foot depression through the Golden Gate with a bridge.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: And I think the first person to ever suggest it
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: was a guy named Charles Crocker. And one of the
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: reasons they needed a bridge, Chuck in the first place,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: is because if you ever look at a map of
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, it's actually a peninsula, so it's connected to
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: the south, to the rest of California, but there's a
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff to the north of that. To get
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: to the north, you have to cross the Golden Gate.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So people were like, we've got to get here to there.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: You know, we like Marine County, We like Pedaluma. We
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: like to say Pedaluma at least. Yeah, Sacelito is another
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: fun one to say. So they started with fairies and
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: that worked just fine. But as more and more people
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: showed up, Tim Francisco was a magnet for immigrants, especially
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: after the Gold Rush of eighteen forty nine, they were like,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: we might need something better than just fairies, like especially
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: if we want to run railroad cars.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Jack, that ferry was expensive, man. Yeah. They
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: were actually just like tanker boats, but they would double
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: as ferries and say, yeah, sure, we'll take you across.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: It was two dollars ahead, which is almost seventy dollars today.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you got range teams. Yeah, I saw seventy
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: seven dollars even.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's even more outrageous.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: And they gave you saltines and grape kool aid. That
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: was the only food you had on.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Board, just like Southern Baptist Communion.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: That's what I had in nursery school. It's actually a
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: winning combination.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: And that was pretty good, especially if you're in church
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and you're like hard up for snacks.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: So oh, there was finally one called up the Princess.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It was a side wheel paddle wheel steamer. That was
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the first official ferry that happened at eighteen sixty eight.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: But that guy Charles Crocker, all the way back in
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: eighteen seventy two, he said, we need a bridge. And
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the reason why he said we need a bridge is
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: because he was a railroad guy, and he's like, we
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: need to get railroads up there. We need to get people,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: we need to move lumber, we need to do all
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: sorts of cool stuff. So let's let's get a bridge, guys.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And people are like, there's no way. That's two miles.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: No one's ever built a suspension bridge that long. And
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen there was a San Francisco Sun journalist
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: who used to study engineering named James Wilkins. He said,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: now I think we can build a suspension bridge. It'll
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: be three thousand feet and it'll cost in those days
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: dollars one hundred million dollars, which is almost I'm sorry,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: it's more than three billion today. So everyone said that's
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: probably not going to happen either. So eventually it took
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: a city engineer named Michael O'Shaughnessy to be on the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: lookout to say, we do need a bridge, but we
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: got to get this cost lower. Enlisted a guy in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one from Chicago name an engineer named Joseph Strauss,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: who said, here's what we do. Everyone. It is possible,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: but it can't be a straight suspension bridge all the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: way over, and it can't be just a cantilevered bridge.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: The suspension will be too flexible and FLEXI with those wins,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and the cantilever would be way too heavy. So if
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: we do a combination of the two, I think that's
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the winning idea, and it'll cost you only seventeen million dollars.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was much more in line with what the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: city engineer knew that the city of San Francisco would
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: be willing to pay for something like that, right right, Yeah.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Joseph Strauss, he became the central figure of the Golden
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: gate Bridge. He's often credited to the man who built
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: the Golden gate Bridge. That's a genuinely unfair thing to say,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: because so many people contributed so much to it. But
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: he was he was not a shy person. He could
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: work with just about anybody. He knew how to work
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: the system, and he was not a self promoter, but
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: he definitely was after the acclaim of being the man
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: who built the Golden Gate Bridge. So just kind of
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: put that in your in your pipe for later.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Right, don't smoke it yet though, right.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: No, no, don't don't spark it. But he enlisted a
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: guy named Charles Ellis, who is like the I don't
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: know how you would describe him. I can't think of
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: an analogous movie character, but I feel like we can
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: get him across a little bit. He was obsessed with
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: making sure that this bridge was not going to collapse.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would describe him as a math whiz. He
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: was the guy.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I think we did the when we did the New
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: York Subways episode, we talked about the tunnels that went
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: under the Hudson River.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: M hmm.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: He was a guy that came up with that plan.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And so that's a pretty good dude to get if
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you're trying to build a bridge that no one thought
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: could be built at the time, right, like super super
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: math guy. Just keep math in your head, because, as
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: we'll see, math would end up being his undoing.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was not after a claim He did
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: not I get the impression necessarily know how to work
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: with everybody or work the system. He just wanted to
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: do his math stuff, right.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So he was a good guy to have in that sense.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why he was so good
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: is because the design process was so long. At one point,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: as we'll see, they just completely scrapped Strauss's idea and
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: started over.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Financing was also a thing. I mean, Strauss had gotten
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: it down to an estimate of seventeen million, and I'm
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: sure anybody who was paying any attention was like, we
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: should plan on probably at least double that, just about right. Yeah.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: But the state was interested enough that in nineteen twenty
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: three they passed the Golden gate Bridge and Highway District
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Act of California, which basically said to the people in
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the surrounding twenty one counties, Hey, you guys want to
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: get in on this and basically vote for a tax
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: district that can create debt to borrow money basically again
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: in Star counties. What do you think?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah? And they said, well, what does that mean. That
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: sounds weird And they said, well, it means that all
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the businesses and all your homes in your county are
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: going to be put up as collateral jointly against that loan.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And surprisingly, maybe six out of the twenty one county
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: said we're in. We see this progress as something that
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: we need. As far as the remaining counties that weren't
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: into it, you know, some of the obvious reasons is
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: they just didn't want to do that. A so I'm
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: worried about the cost overruns and like, hey, this isn't
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: even going to be enough. Other people didn't. You know,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: this was the early nineteen twenties, so it was still
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of a I mean it was a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: bustling city for nineteen twenties, but there were areas of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: rural you know, ruralness sure across the other side, and
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: like they were like we don't want this bridge, Like
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: we've got livestock over here and we're cutting down our lumber.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And even back then they had conservation this agitating against
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: stuff like this. Notably the Sierra Club was like, we
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: don't want a bridge in that beautiful bay. And there
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: were a lot of other people that came out with
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of good reasons to bring up lawsuits, like
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you know, earthquakes. It was one in nineteen oh six.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: That was recent enough to where like what about this
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: earthquake thing, Like, what if that happens, yeah.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: The first big one. Yeah, shippers were like, well, you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: we can make it through the Golden Gate of the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Pacific pretty easy. Right now, we're a little worried that
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: just building this bridge is going to hamper our ability
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: to make mad cash. The Department of War, which had
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: a heavy presence in that area, it was like, look,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: we run like really important warships in and out of
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: this harbor. We're worried that this bridge is going to
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: block our progress. But then also we're worried that it's
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: going to become a real target for saboteurs and that
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: they will blow up the bridge and block the harbor
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: with the debris. And then the Southern Pacific Railroads stepped
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: up and said, we run the ferries, like we're going
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to lose a bunch of money if you guys build
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: a bridge. So all these people together were either parties
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: to or had their own lawsuits against the bridge authority
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: saying like no, you can, you can't do this, And
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: against all of those odds, the people in favor of
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the bridge managed to overcome that.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and before we break, I do want to mention
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: before we get some email, we mentioned Apartment of War
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: not in bended knee to Pete Hegseth. That was the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: original name that later became the Department of Defense.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I forgot that, which and.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Then all again now yeah, is now to the tune
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: of what I just read was going to cost one
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five million dollars to change that name
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: back to the Department of War.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: So another one hundred and twenty five to change it
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: back to the Defense Department again eventually.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Probably, So, so I just want to point that out.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Let's take a break and we'll be right back. So
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the first design, this hybrid design was pretty ugly. There.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It was a critic that said it looked like an
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: upside down rat trap. So they said, all right, we
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: got to redesign this thing because it's got to look good.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Ellis gets together with consulting engineers leon I guess that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: would be moisseyf and oh Aman, and they got together
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: with Strauss and they said, all right, let's go back
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to this old idea, but a new design of a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: full suspension bridge. Yeah, the longest one ever and it'll
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: end up being the tallest one ever at the time
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: at least, because you know, all the winds in the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: water and the boats and everything, this thing needed to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: be tall and super long.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it also needed to be tall because the
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: angle of the cables to hold up such a long
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: deck had to come down at a crazy angle. Yeah,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: which meant that those towers had to be really tall.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: So this is going to be the tallest bridge in
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: the world, the longest suspension bridge in the world. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: they're like, let's do that, Let's make the impossible happen.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: And it's fourth pointing out chuck, Like, these guys aren't
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: using CAD, they're not using any sort of computer. They
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: do not exist yet. They're not using calculators. They're doing
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: all of these calculations by hand, using their noodles, paper rules,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: slide rules, pencils, Like, that's how this bridge was designed.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: That's how they calculated the stresses on it. That's how
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: they figured out how to engineer it, all by hand
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and using their heads.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing. They did all kinds of testing, obviously some
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: pretty impressive stuff. As you'll see, they create a model
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that was one fifty six scale took it to Princeton
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: University there in New Jersey and did a scale down
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: equivalent of one hundred and twenty million pounds of vertical
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: load to tests to make sure those towers could take
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: that past that test. And like I said, there was
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: so much math going on. Eventually Strauss got irritated. So
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the guy Ellis that they hired because he was great
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: at math, got fired because the math was so irritating
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to Strauss.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Ellis later recorded that Strauss said that the structure
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: was nothing unusual and didn't require the time that Ellis
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: thought necessary for it. Oh man, I also saw elsewhere
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: somebody say that Strauss was envious or resentful of I
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: guess the respect that Ellis got from the board whenever
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: he went and spoke to them.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I could see that.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah, this is And I also think that Strauss
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: was getting leaned on. He was the one that was
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: getting pressured to meet the time, and Ellis was like, no,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: it's going to take six months more than that. So
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: finally Strauss fires Ellis in the most like cowardly way
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: a person can. He forces him to take vacation, and
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: then before his vacation's over, he's ends him a telegram
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: saying you're fired.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty bad. Ellis didn't receive a lot of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: credit at the time, and in fact, he didn't get
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of credit until after he passed away in
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine. So we're taking our hat off to you,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: mister Ellis, for your great work and your great math,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: because we are both math whizzes ourselves, and we have
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of respect for maths.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: That's right. He also he didn't have anything to do.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: He couldn't really find much work because this was during
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the depression and he was fired. He went back and
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: he went over all the figures again, all of the
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: calculations to make sure they were right. He was spending
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: like seventy hours a week and it took it months. Geez.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And he did. And he was like, Yep, this is
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: going to work, even though no one was listening to him,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: he wasn't being paid for it. He just wanted to
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: make sure that this thing was going to work.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: That's great. So in nineteen twenty eight, they kind of
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: mired their way through, or got their way through, the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: mire of the legal activity and all the protests and everything.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: The state government California said the Golden Gate Bridge and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Highway District is now a thing. They're going to pull
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: off every facet of this build. And in November nineteen
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: thirty the district issued thirty five million dollars in bonds
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: to finance this thing, which was a problem at the
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: time though, because it was during the Great Depression, obviously,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and they couldn't find any buyers for these bonds, and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: all these legal matters were scaring people away, and so
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: they turned to kind of one of the heroes of
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: this whole thing in nineteen thirty two, a guy named
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Amadio Giannini, the president of Bank of America.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the most revered and respected banks in
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: the world. Everyone loves Bank of America. They're basically a
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: mascot here in the US, that's right.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And he was also just a California hero. He kind
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of kickstarted the Hollywood movie industry, the California wine industry.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So he was a guy to go to and he
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: was like, I got you. I got a big room
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: with six million dollars over here, and I'll buy those
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: bonds and you can get started on your project.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is pretty cool. And he is one of
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: the heroes for sure, so they got started. They started
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: during the depression, as we saw, and on the one hand,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: that meant financing it was difficult. On the other hand,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: it meant that they had a huge pool of laborers
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: to tack because there are a lot of out of
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: work people. So they got everyone they needed basically immediately
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: to get started. It started on January fifth, nineteen thirty three.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And there are a lot of issues that construction face
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: that made this a unique construction job. Every day, four
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: times a day, so two times in and two times out.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: The tide brings in and takes out three hundred and
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: ninety billion gallons of water through the Golden Gate. While
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: these guys are trying to build their bridge. There's tons
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: of fog, there's a lot of storms, there's high winds.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: It was not just like a walk in the park
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: like apparently the Bay Bridge was to build.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean apparently the Baybridge is more impressive in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: some ways and was built and finished before, but it
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: didn't get nearly the press because it was just an
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: easier job overall.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Right, It's like eight miles long, which is the exact
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: distance from downtown Detroit to Eminem's house, and.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that coming when you said Detroit, I
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: didn't even see it coming. Nice work, thanks, all right.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So it's a difficult job, super super hard because of
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the terrain and the water and the wind and the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: fog and everything going on. The north tower was built
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: on the Marin County side on the coastline there into
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: a very strong layer of basalt and sandstone, and that's great.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So they were like, the north side is fine because
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: this stuff is very, very sturdy to build into. The
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: south tower was about one thousand feet off shore and
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: a bed of serpentine rock, and they went, this side
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: is a little trickier, so we're gonna have to take
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: our time a little more.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They got this guy named Andrew C. Lawson. He's
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: a great example of how many people were thoroughly involved
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: in this because every person you mentioned in this story,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: just imagine there's dozens or maybe hundreds of people working
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: beneath them in coordination with that person. He was a
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: geologist and he basically took to test the bedrock. He
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure how he did it, but he
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: put the equivalent of a railroad box car fully loaded
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: that amount of weight and force onto a twenty square
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: inch area and it held up fine. Something it is.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I could not find out how he did that exactly.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: It's just such a spectacular way to put it that
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I guess everyone's like, no one cares what actually happened.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just tell me he did it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And then he put on an old timey diving suit
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: and diving bell and went down to the bedrock and
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: hit it with a hammer. And apparently if it makes
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: this sound like a dinging sound, that's what you're looking for,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: because not only is it strong, but it's also flexible,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: which is going to come in handy whenever the San
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Andreas gives California the big one, the eight point six
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: magnitude earthquake that everyone says is inevitably coming someday.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. In order to ensure that, you know, stability,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: they had workers dive ninety feet down to put explosives
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: down to blast out even more rock so they could
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: go even deeper. They had to get rid of those
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: fragments to even get out to that tower. You know,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: they have all these materials, so a lot of big
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: construction like this is constructing things so you can do
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the construction. And that was the case here. So they
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: had to build a road basically on a trestle just
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to get out to that tower, and then they had
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: to protect this thing from like being bumped into by
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: a ship.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If you look at the concrete foundations that the
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: towers are built on, you'll notice that they're like oval
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: and those were designed to basically act as fenders, kind
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: of like if you play bumper bowling. Okay, it's basically
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: like that, and imagine the bowling ball is a ship
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: that's being captained by somebody who's not paying attention. Huh,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: probably on his phone. Yeah, yeah, and they will hit
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: that fender, the bumper, and it will keep them from
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: running into the actual tower itself, and because of the
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: oval shape, hopefully kind of push the ship away from
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the fender itself.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the captain says, what was that? Yeah, they weren't.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I think they said it looked like a giant bathtub
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is what they referred to it. But you know, they
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: filled that thing once it was peaking above the surface,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: partially with concrete, pumped out the water, reinforced it with steel,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: more concrete, and all of a sudden, you've got a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: protected tower with that that Billiard's bumper bowl. Bumper bowl?
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Is that what you called it?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Bumper bowling?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, I thought you were talking about like bumper.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, bumper bowling where they put those guard rails down
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: in the gutters.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we went bowling last week and Ruby still uses those.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I do too. Sometimes I can still manage to miss
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: pins bumper bowling.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: But oh okay, I thought you might just roll a
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: gutter balls like man who can't.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: No, I think even bumper bowling, I can miss the pins. Still.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I did the usual. I know I've mentioned this before,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: but with bowling usually for and I think the other
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: day I hit like a like a one forty and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: then like a seventy.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I don't remember. Are those good?
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I mean for someone who doesn't bowl much, I feel
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: like is a pretty strong number.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Is that, dude? Or heyesus level good?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: No?
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: No, No, like three hundred is a perfect game. Uh,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: But I mean one forty means you've hit plenty of
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: strikes and spares and probably had a good last frame out.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what they call it, but
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: seventy is bad. My whole point was, though, is I'm
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: good for one game? And then my my game really
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: drops off.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, were you junk by the second game?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, I had I had but
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: one beer, a PBR draft. It was delicious.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, sometimes those are the best ones, that really
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: crowdy ones.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I don't do that much anymore, but it was super
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: refreshing and delicious.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's Chuck goes bowling.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah and PBR uh huh. So you want to take
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: a break.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, we're there already. Let's do it.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so Chuck, they've got the foundation poured. That's a
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: nice fender a bumper around the towers. Apparently, once they
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: got that foundation done, they erected the South Tower, which
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: was the more difficult of the two towers, the one
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: closest to San Francisco. They erected it in like six months,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: which is really amazing, especially as you find like that
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: added up. That was not an anomaly for this project,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: that kept like hitting milestones ahead of time, and that
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: used quite a bit of steel thanks to Bethlehem Steel
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Corporation of Pennsylvania. And as we know from our Christmas episode,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: the reason it is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is thanks to our
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Moravian friends who moved there in the eighteenth cents.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Right New Jersey chips into gott gotta shout out New
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Jersey for sure.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: I don't believe the Moravians had much to do with
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: naming New Jersey.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, But as far as the steel goes.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, yes, And so Bethlehem Steel provided forty four thousand
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: tons of steel for each tower. That was each tower,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: and this is not like a quick thing. They prefabricated them,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: put them on a barge, and then sent them to
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, down the East coast, passed Florida, through the
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Panama Canal, and then up to San Francisco. That's how
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: every single piece of steel, fabricated steel made its way
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: to the Golden Gate project.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, via the Panama Canal. They get there,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: they obviously use these giant cranes to lit these steel
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: sections into place and start kind of just putting this
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: thing together like a kit. At this point, and at
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: this point they haven't even you know. Eventually they had
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: temporary elevators built so people could get up and down quicker.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But before that it would take a worker twenty minutes
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: just to climb a ladder. I can't imagine how terrifying
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: that would be just to be climbing a ladder that high,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: that takes twenty minutes to climb. But that's how it
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: got to the top. And then we get to the color.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Like we mentioned before, it's not named Golden gate Bridge
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: because of the color, because it's really not golden in color.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: It got there, like we said, prefab then it was
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: painted with an orange just red lead primer just to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: kind of make sure it made the journey there okay,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: without getting rusted out. And once it got there, consulting
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: architect Irving Morrow said, man, that looks pretty darn good. Everybody,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: what do you think? And everyone went bully bully, And
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: so they started searching for sort of related colors and
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: ended up landing on what is now known is Golden
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: gate Bridge International. Orange.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I would have kept my mouth shup, but I would
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: have been looking around, like you guys think that looks good.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: That's the color we're going.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: To paint the mean to green personally, but.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Okay. So one of the things that is great about
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: that particular color orange, And I think one of the
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: reasons people said bully for it was because it didn't.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: It didn't well, it harmonized with the surrounding area. It's nice,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: hilly shrubby it like. It was a good choice for
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: sure for that, and I think it also kind of
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: placated a lot of people too there like that actually
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: kind of goes with everything. It doesn't stick out like
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: a sore thumb. So it was a good idea, and
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: that International orange is still used today. You can thank
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: International orange for the color of your life vest if
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: it's orange.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: That's right. That is just regular International orange. The golden
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: gate bridge International orange is a little different. It's like
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: a variation on that, but like you said, it blended
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: in well. And it also did you know, the job
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that it was really supposed to do was stand out
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: for ships and boats there in the fog. Rejected colors
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: included silver, black, and then black and yellow, which was
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: suggested by the US Navy, like you know, stripe, black
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: and yellow, because that was the best color for visibility
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: to them.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: It's the best color for Christian metal too.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: That's right. It's funny because I can that striper. This
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: stuff looks so good, but I can't picture a bridge
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: in yellow and black stripe. It just looks too safety industrial,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you know, or cliffs nose? Yeah, yeah, true.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Didn't the dude, the drummer from Striper have black and
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: yellow striped drum sticks? Even?
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I think he had a black and yellow striped everything,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: if you know what I mean.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, I see he had a black and yellow stripe Gnomon.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Let's keep going, boy, that's good, all right? So Marrow
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: we mentioned Irving Morrow. He's the consulting architect who said, like,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I'd like this color. He also obviously played a part
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: in a lot of the aesthetic aesthetic aesthetic decisions. That's tough,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: good band name, but also bad esthetic. No one could
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: ever say it, are you going to see tonight? The
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: aesthetic decisions. One of the things that he designed aesthetically
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: was to make it look a little taller. Was those
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: tower panels decrease in size from bottom to top. Pretty
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: good idea, yep.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: And the well I guess Lawson was like, let's do this,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: and let's add a little bit of this and maybe
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: put bows on the top kind of thing. Strauss, who
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: again is the man at the center of all of this,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: he was way ahead of his time as far as
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: safety goes. Apparently, the Golden Project was the first one
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: that required hard hats on site, which is not fairly ubiquitous.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good little fact.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then he also created a safety net that
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: was movable, so I think the people who were in
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: the highest risk of falling to their deaths got to
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: use the safety net while they were up their work.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and use it they did, because that thing ended
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: up saving the lives of nineteen construction workers. They became
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: known that those nineteen became known as the Halfway to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Hell Club, which is pretty funny in a way. But
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: there were some deaths. In February thirty seven, scaffolding collapsed
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: due to an accident, thirteen men on it. The net failed,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and ten of them died. But in the end, eleven
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: people died from this project, which is pretty good. I mean,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: it's awful that eleven people died. But for the time,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: they would say, like for every million dollars of a project,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: you can expect one death, And this thing came in
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: at like thirty five million or so, so they expected,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you know, thirty to forty deaths and there were only eleven.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: So that was that was I guess a win for
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: safety for the time at least.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I find that a really strange rule
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: of thumb. For every million spent, you can expect to death. Like,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I guess what that's based on is just the complexity
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: increases by the price. I may're the height something.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably just that means it's it's big and difficult
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and complex. I think you're right, But it's definitely the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: only thing the way to calculate something, it really is.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, there's thirty four people dead in one person's like,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: how much is this bridge going cost?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: You?
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Like thirty five? And you're in.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: There's cost overruns and you know what that means.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: So they completed the towers, both towers in nineteen thirty five.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Remember they started this whole thing. I think they started
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: building that temporary roadway to the first foundation in nineteen
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: thirty one. They're moving along, and after the towers would complete,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: it was time to create those four iconic cables that
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: are the actual things that hold up the road deck.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: The bridge itself. The point of the bridge is held
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: up by these cables. And if you see one of
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: those cables in person, you will find that it is
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: three feet one meter thirty six inches. Let's see, do
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: it three hundred centimeters in. Let's see, it would be
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: a third of a decameter in width or in diameter,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: and it's actually made of twenty five thousand wires. Each
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: of those cables are all twisted together.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and to get that done, they hired John A.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Roebling's son's company is the name of the company, and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: they had worked on the Brooklyn Bridge, so they were
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: obviously great people to call for that. But like you said,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I think you said it was completed ahead of schedule.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: This was April nineteenth, nineteen thirty seven, about a million
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: three under the thirty five million dollar budget. Just a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: little housekeeping here. It's one point seven miles long, ninety
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: feet wide, holds six lanes of traffic, two sidewalks, seven
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty six foot high towers, with the main
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: span between them being forty two hundred feet and at
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: his midpoint the span hangs two hundred and sixty five
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: feet above the average height of the water below. And
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: people were really excited to get on this thing.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: They were an opening day. The first day they let
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: pedestrians across, the next day was cars, and at the
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: grand opening. I think this kind of gets across the
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: type of person Joseph strausswa he read a poem that
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: he wrote for the day, and he was a poet,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: so it's not bad. I like the rhythm of it.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: The meter sure is that correct?
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I would say go look it up and read it yourself.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to read it. But it's called the
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Mighty Task is done by Joseph Strauss. The thing that
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: bothers me, Aside from a couple of clunky lines, he
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: says essentially like that all the people who are involved
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: of this are glorified and that no selfish urge stains
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: its life, no envy, greed, intrigue or strife. And I'm like, dude,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: he specifically didn't mention Ellis, Charles Ellis at this whole thing,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: and then he goes to the he has the audacity
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: to say that that's not being done here at this
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: grand ceremony.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they built a Trellis so you had a
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: word there in the bag.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: That's right, good point, Chuck Man.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know about Strauss, now, Yeah.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: He's not really talked about like that from what I
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: can tell, I just kind of put this together from
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: different different places. But there's a there's a bronze statue
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: of him in Golden Gate Park, I think, and there's
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: books about him and his amazing feet, And it's just
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I don't like people like that who take full credit
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: for something that yeah, hundreds or thousands of people have
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: done and that they did, like backbiting along the way
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: with it. It's just I don't like people like that.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I'm with you. He actually had a Trellis line. He
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: was like, what rhymes with trellis? Hmm? I got nothing?
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he scratched it out.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Like Ellis is outside the window holding up a sign.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: The math checks out.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I saw that. No one can say for certain whether
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Ellis ever saw the Golden Gate Bridge himself. I'm sure
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: sure that he went and saw it at some point,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: because he died decade or two, yeah, a good decade
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: after it opened, So I would guess unless he had
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: like a horrible aversion at just the thought of the bridge,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I'll bet he went and visited it.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet you're right. So we can compare it
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: to other suspension bridges in a few ways, because I
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: think that's fairly interesting. It's got a lighter roadway than most,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: it does not have train tracks on it, but it
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: seems like that was one of the original ideas, is
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: they wanted a train to be able to run across
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: that thing. But they realized that the winds were a
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: real problem in nineteen forty after the to Come Up
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Narrows Bridge disaster, and they saw those things in forty
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: mile an hour winds twisting around. They're like, we need
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: to cause we get winds up to like seventy five
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: miles an hour, so we need to stiffen this thing up.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: So they added horizontal trusses to stiffen the structure against twisting,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and that's what brought the total weight of the deck
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: too high, basically to where they could not end up
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: putting railroad tracks down.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: No, like they were close to the limit of it.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I guess right, yeah, I couldn't do it, Okay.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: So the Golden Gate it was the longest suspension bridge
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: until nineteen sixty four when the Arizona Narrows took over
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: that for a while. And like we said, there's Golden
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Gate Park that predates the bridge, but Golden Gate National
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Record Creation Area was created on either side of the
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: bridge after the bridge was already around for a while,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: and there's some pretty neat things about it. One of
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: the things we remember, we talked about how people were
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: worried about earthquakes. Well, it actually survived the Loma Prieta earthquake,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty nine earthquake that took place when the
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: A's and the Giants were playing each other in the
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: World Series and just killed a lot of people. The
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Bay Bridge apparently a section of that collapsed and the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Golden Gate survived with no damage whatsoever from when I
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: could tell her, very little of it.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty good there. And this is something I heard
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: early on in my life was that the Golden Gate
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Bridge basically is in constant paint mode basically, so like
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: it's always being painted apparently, like it takes so long
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: to paint and sort of you know, take care of
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the corrosion because of all that salty fog and salty
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: air and water. Right, just it never stops. It's not like,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: all right, we're done and we're going to take a
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: few months off. It's continuously being kept up.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And one other thing about the earthquake thing, they
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: somebody at some point figured out that the San Andreas
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: could produce at most of eight point six magnitude earthquake,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: and then they went and figured out that the Golden
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Gate would probably not be able to withstand that. So
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: they started, I think back in well after the Loma
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Prieta earthquake in nineteen eighty nine, they started a bit
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: of a retro fit to try to make it earthquake
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: proof up to eight point six magnitude. And one of
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: the things that they were having to shore up Chuck
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: was that they didn't bolt the towers to the foundation
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: because they're like, these are so heavy, we don't even
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: need to waste the time or money on bolts. And
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: an eight point six earthquake, they realized if you stay
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: in stiffly with your leg stiff and then you kind
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: of fall to the side and one of your feet
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: comes off the ground. When you go back to center again,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: your feet comes down, and imagine one of the towers
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: doing that when it comes back down on that foundation.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: They're like, that foundation is not going to hold that up. Yeah,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: so that's what they're trying to retrofit. Now.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a big footstomp, is what they said for sure.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: So we have to close now with some sort of
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: darker stuff because the Golden Gate bridge, if it's known for.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: It's known for many things, but one thing it's very
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: much known for is that there have been many many
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: suicides attempted and completed over the years. They averaged about
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: twenty per year for a very long time. Hundreds of
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: others had been stopped by obviously volunteers that are stationed
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: there to watch for this sort of thing. Bridge workers, cops,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: sometimes just random people like you see in a movie.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: And they took a very long time to eventually get
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: a safety net, even though it was possible. They really
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: dragged their feet getting that thing up, didn't they.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw that there was an opposition to it
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: that included it will be ugly.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Oh god, so.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Every I think since the first guy who died by
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: suicide's name was Harold Waber. He was walking on the
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: bridge all the way back, just like a few months
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: after it opened, and he was walking with a friend.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: He said, this is as far as I go, and
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: he became the first person to jump to his death
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: from the bridge. That was in nineteen thirty seven.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what a thing, What a last line, you know?
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine being that friend and being like wait what
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: and then yeah, yeah, I can't imagine that since then
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: at least two thousand people, maybe a little more, probably more,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: because I think they assume that there's plenty of people
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: who have jumped and their bodies were never found. But
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: at least two thousand confirmed people have jumped to their
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: deaths from the Golden gate Bridge. And in nineteen ninety five,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: the California Highway Patrol, which had been keeping an official count,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: stop their official count at nine hundred and ninety seven
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: because they were worried that there was going to be
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: a rash of suicides to become the one thousandth person
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: to die by suicide by jumping off the Golden gate Bridge.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: So officially the count's nine and ninety seven, but I
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: think most credible sources put it at over two thousand.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, and what a thing to think about, What
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: an awful thing to consider. But like, thank god they
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: thought of something like that, because they're.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Probably right, you know what the security net.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: No, the stopping the public count, because oh yeah, you know,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I would never have thought of something like that, So
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I'm glad they thought of that. There was a really,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to call it, interesting and awful
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: documentary from two thousand and six called the bridge. I
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: saw it. I'm not sure did you see that one? Yeah,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: there's a lot to it. It was you know, the
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: point was to drive awareness about this and about suicide
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and suicide prevention. But it was very controversial in that
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: they captured footage. They had cameras you know, trained on
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: the bridge from the mountains nearby, and they captured footage
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: of twenty three suicides, including a survivor, and they you know,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: filmed family members and interviewed one about their loved ones.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: It's very moving and upsetting documentary from when did I say,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six?
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is so Yeah. That definitely raised public awareness
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: and kind of I think amplified the public outcry about
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: this and made people be like, wait, we probably should
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: do something about this, because twenty to thirty people a
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: year were taking their own lives at this time. Right.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: They finally, finally in twoenty the beginning of twenty twenty four,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: they finished putting up these safety nets essentially that stick
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: out from the side of the bridge, so that if
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: you jump off the side of the bridge, you're going
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: to land in the steel net. The whole thing costs
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty four million dollars and completed suicides
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: dropped by seventy three percent. Yeah, after they were installed.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: And even more amazing than that, I think there were
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: two hundred attempts and thirty completed suicides a year on
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: average after the nets were installed. That fell to one
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty two and eight in twenty twenty four,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: and there were no suicides in the last seven months
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five. So these nets are actually preventing
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: people from completing suicide and also deterring people from attempting
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: suicide there.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, they've done studies where they've interviewed
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: people who did survive. Most of them don't ever try again,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: which is like very encouraging to know. I think there
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: was a study in the nineteen seventies by a guy
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: named Richard Sidon, and he followed up on five hundred
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and fifteen people who had been stopped These aren't people
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: who jumped and survived, but they were stopped from jumping
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: in the thirty five years prior to the study, and
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: he found that only thirty five of the five point
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: fifteen went on to die by suicide. So that's really
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: great to know that if you can be an EMT
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: or a police officer or a random passer by who
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: can get someone out of that dire situation that there's
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: a very very good chance that will be not something
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: they go on to complete.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you mentioned those volunteers that are stationed along
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: the bridge just for that very purpose. I would wager
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: that there's at least one stuff you should know a
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: listener who does that, and I would love to hear
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: from them.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I bet you're right. And I hope someone comes to
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: our live show and stands up at the end and
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: tells everybody that they do that. I bet you that happens.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they will get thunderous applause. That's right. I feel
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: like we should end on a high note. And the
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: high note is the Golden Gate Bridge was where James
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Bond successfully defeated Christopher Walkin saving Tanya Roberts in The Bargain.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: That's right of you to a kill.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Probably the best bomb movie ever.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Hmmm, interesting, All right.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: I mean that was the one I grew up on,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: so that's probably why I like that. But there's no
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: kid who grew up on like The Living Daylights and
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: was like, that's.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: The good stuff.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Chuck said, good stuff, which is where I was trying
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: to push him because that unlocks the listener mail.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: All right, this is a chance to plug friends of
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the show here. Hey, guys, just finished the episode on
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: the radio, the national radio Quiet Zone. Found it very
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: fascinating and by the way, we got a few emails
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: from people pointing this out. I want to reach out
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: with a recommendation of one of the McElroy pods. The
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: maclroy brothers, Justin Griffin and Travis McElroy have long done
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: my brother, my brother and me and I've known those
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: guys for a long time. Super cool dudes. And then
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: they do a show with their dad called The adventure Zone,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: which is where they play D and D and that's
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: become hugely popular.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: That's awesome, man, Yeah, it's super cool.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: But the second season of Adventure Zone is called Amnesty,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and it is well, it's a tabletop role playing game,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: so I don't know if it's always D and D,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: but Griffin has said it in the Green Bank area,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: so the folks in that area that it attracts and
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the lack of communication is a plot device and really
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: drives a story. It's one of my favorites that they've done,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I hold stuff you dealing with my heart. Thanks for
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: doing what you do. And ps, I loved hearing a
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: few of the macarroys on Movie Crush. I loved hearing
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: josh on Behind the Bastards and so on all of
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: my favorite podcasters. Crossing paths now and then really drives
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: those parasocial bonds. So go listen to josh on Behind
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the Bastards your past episodes. You're on a couple of times, right.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, I was, and on Daily Zeitgeist. No, I was
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: on Behind the Bastards once. I was on Daily's Seikeist.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: A couple of times, Zeitgeist a couple of times. And
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: then I had Griffin on Movie Crush in his favorite movie,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: which he claims is not his favorite movie only but
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: also the best movie was groundhog Day.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: It is a good movie.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: And I had Justin on and Justin I think I
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: can remember every single guest in their movie. Still his
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: was with Nail and.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I I've never seen that. Isn't that a Morrisey album?
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's a British independent film, so
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise me.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: This is Vauxhall and I okay with.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Neil and I Richard D. Grant. It's it's really good.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I think you and Yumi would both like it.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: All right, we'll watch it then, Chuck.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: It's from like the indie movie revolution of the nineties
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: and from England, and it's really really great.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: You know. I think I was talking smack not too
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: long ago about pt Anderson. I don't know if it
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: was on the podcast or not, and that I basically
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: hadn't liked anything at his since Boogie Knights, Okay, maybe Magnolia, Okay.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Then I saw One Battle after Another and I'm like, buddy,
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: this guy is back in my estimate. Not only did
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: he direct it, he wrote it too. It's a good movie.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he writ and directs all his movies. He Yeah,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I loved, loved, loved One Battle after Another. I think
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: it was my favorite movie the year that that in Centers.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: We're probably tied.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: I've not seen Sinners yet, is it? It's pretty good.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: It's all right, I'll check it out. Don't tell me anything.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: That's fine. All I needed to hear was oh man.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Capital G grade and it's right up your alley.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Okay. Cool?
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Great, And by the way, is from Ryan Pinto, who's
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: coming to see us in Denver, and I'm sorry, Ryan,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: but we're not doing it on the pinto. We've already
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: done that live show.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: That's a shame. You can go back and listen to
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: it and imagine that you're there because we did release
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: it eventually as an.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Episode, and then he might have been who knows.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Thanks Ryan, We'll see you in Denver. If you want
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: to see us in Denver, Seattle, or San Francisco, where
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: you can also visit the Golden Gate Bridge, you can
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: go to stuff youshould Know do dot com and get tickets,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: And in the meantime, if you want to email us
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: like Ryan did, you can send an email to stuff
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.