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the following program is a special birthday salute from K. R. O N. T. V. The Golden Gate bridge at 50. Her story her secrets. They accomplished an amazing feat in those days. I would have liked to have been there with them and I never dreamed that

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there would be a bridge. Never dreamed of it. Finally it happened and I finally said I gotta do it, I gotta do it now and it took a supreme effort to leap over the bridge. Everybody used to say that it couldn't be built. You know, there

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was a lot of stories out that the bridge would never get finished. How this gate to freedom and democracy and good dreams could be so difficult to pass based on the color of your hair or how high your cheekbones are and that just did not seem

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very american. Here we are approximately 1000 miles away from one of the most wonderful thing that man is made and it is beautiful to us here. But some of us look at a different point of view. A lot of us don't think of it as just

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the bridge. You know how we get so many people that jump on it so many times a year. Mm everybody was excited, they were doing something that wasn't done before. You felt good, you know it will be part of that. Mhm News center four presents an

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anniversary special. The Golden Gate Bridge at 50. Her story. Her secrets brought to you by wang laboratories wang makes it work by PG and E and by your northern California Toyota dealers for genuine Toyota parts and service. See your local northern California. Toyota dealer. He's got

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more for you. Hello, I'm jim pam R and I'm Sylvia Chase. Our story about the Golden gate bridge and its 50th birthday isn't just about steel and concrete, it's about fascinating people to. It was conceived by a madman designed by a college professor and the men

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who built her made 62 cents an hour. They thought they were just building the biggest bridge in the world. But they didn't realize is that they were also building the roadway to a million american dreams. It was to be the first bridge across an open ocean.

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A final link between Mexico and Canada 1937, the dream was almost finished. It would change the face of northern California more than anything built before or since $35 million. 14 workers did Some say the most photographed structure in the world and now on its 50th birthday,

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a billion cars have crossed the Golden Gate Bridge carrying roughly as many people as there are on the planet. It all started with Joshua Norton, a gold rush merchant who went insane and became Emperor Norton In 1869, he proposed a bridge from your Balbuena Island to

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Sausalito and Beyond to the Caroline Islands, but no one listened San Francisco was too busy booming in other directions. Life was great. Mhm. April 18, The great earthquake ended it all. The cocky young city almost disappeared. Thank you. Yeah, Yeah. But san Franciscans set about rebuilding

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with a speed that bordered on the obsessive. An aggressive city engineer named Michael O'Shaughnessy went on a rebuilding spree that included new cable cars, the Stockton Tunnel, the twin peaks tunnel, the gigantic Hetchy reservoir. The rebuilding climax came nine years later in 1915 when San Francisco

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hosted the Panama Pacific Exposition. Mm This night shot of the fair shows a ride called the aero scope built by a young engineer named joseph Strauss. He later built the Golden Gate bridge From 1915 until 1935. The time before the bridges, San Francisco enjoyed one of

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its finest periods fred Lopez. Perry was a Portuguese laborer who settled in the city's north beach section when I come to some sister that was probation and people go to those parties, you know, I just drink that moonshine risk and it was very excited. Another immigrant,

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a young man from Sacramento hurricane. It used to be like an island that was sort of cut off from reality cut off from the world before the bridges were built and it was a foggy night. You really felt you were out in the ocean and only

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a ferry boat to connect you with the mainland. Sarah popper was a young school girl growing up in humboldt County. She remembers visiting the city, You drove your car onto the ferry and you stayed on the ferry until a doctor and you drove off and that

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was a big thing at that time. Whereas people commute today. But the city where newcomers flocked had a problem, it was now cramped for space. Los Angeles became the state's largest city and san Francisco could grow no further than its shore line across the channel. In

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marin was all the undeveloped land a city could need if only there were a faster way to get there than by ferryboat. By the late 19 twenties, SAn Francisco's growth problems were causing problems even over there in Sausalito on sunday night, the line of cars waiting

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for the ferry back to the city was stacked up for 20 miles three cars wide. Clearly it was time to build a bridge Enter Joseph Strauss, the 5-foot engineer from Chicago In 1919. San Francisco City engineer had half seriously asked him if he could build a

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bridge across the Golden Gate Channel. Strauss said yes and talked himself into the job of chief engineer. It took him 15 years to get public approval and financing. In February 1933, they finally broke ground in a ceremony at Crissy Field. Meantime, workers started the real work

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of scooping two huge chunks out of the hillsides of marin and the presidio. The plan was to pour tons of concrete into each hole in three stages. The base block was concrete poured into the bottom and topped off with a series of steps out of it,

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stuck steel girders and connected to them were rods called I bars. The cables would be fastened to them. Concrete pouring went on night and day. Yeah. Step to a concrete anchor block was poured to cover the girders and leave just the eye bars showing the surface

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between the two blocks consisted of steps so the blocks would grip each other better. Finally, the massive weight block was poured on top. Each Anchorage now weighed 65 tons. Next step, the tower foundations a frustrated joseph Strauss would call it the most difficult engineering feat ever

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accomplished by man. It looks so beautiful, but the Golden Gate Channel is a deadly brew of currents, wind and salt water corrosion. General john fremont named the Channel Golden Gate in 18 46 it reminded him of the harbor at Constantinople called the Golden Horn. The gate

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is 300 ft deep and carries more water than seven Mississippi rivers Bridging. It presented engineering problems No one had ever solved. Yeah, 1934, work began on the marine tower. It started with a concrete foundation called appear, but the other tower ran into terrible problems. To be

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closer to marin. The san Francisco tower would be built in shallow water out in the open ocean, something never before attempted because it was 1000 ft out in the channel. A trestle bridge was built to bring materials out to it, but a freighter lost in the

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fog crashed and destroyed it. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile divers were at work beneath the surface, they were drilling holes, filling them with explosives and blasting a hole for a foundation on the surface. All you could see was a telltale ripple. The tides underwater though were so strong

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that man size boulders rolled freely along the ocean floor. So divers worked underwater. Only 20 minutes during the calm time when the tide was changing directions slowly, an underwater concrete shell took shape when it broke the water line. It was as big as a football field.

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Chief engineer Strauss called it the toughest engineering feat ever accomplished, but it had taken so long. They'll work on the rival Bay Bridge Overtook it and the Bay bridge would open first. Meantime on the marine side, the public finally saw proof that a bridge was taking

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shape. Yeah. The steel had come from this plant in Pottstown pennsylvania. Like any steel. It began rusting, so factory workers had immediately painted it with a red led shop coat. The present day. Chief engineer dan moen says that was the bridge builders one big mistake. The

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steel was not sandblasted, but it was just wire brushed and steel starts resting immediately. As soon as it comes out of the rolling mill, it starts resting. It also has a code of we call mill scale that's stuck tight to the to the steel sandblasting will

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take that loose well on the golden gate bridge. The paint, The original first coat of primer was put over the top of that mill scale. So while a paint looked good, there was already corrosion taking place under the paint. The painted girders were railroaded to philadelphia

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and ship through the Panama Canal to Alameda Island. Huge barges brought them to the bridge to be lifted up by cranes. A single section could weigh 65 tons and swing wildly in the eight-foot seas. It was an odd sight to see steel workers used to working

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on land getting seasick fred Lopez. Perry was a laborer to this day. He remembers the awful chill the first time I had to use a long underwear city uh event back east. I didn't use him. Not even in the wintertime, We'll hear that wind blows right

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through you right three across there were shelters up on top, but just enough for one or two watchmen as the tower sections were riveted in place, the hot rivets and melted the lead paint and gave off deadly fumes. Some men got lead poisoning too late for

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them. The problem was discovered and the paint changed Inside the towers, there were honeycombs for strength so dark and complicated that workers carried a 26 page guide book. A crane called a traveler built the towers, it stood on top of the tower lifted up the new

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sections and when they were secured it was ready to climb up and start the next stage using Jax workers lifted the huge crane up to its new position as the towers rose against the hillsides, people saw a revolutionary bridge design below the roadway. The tower still

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had the traditional criss cross beams for strength, but above the roadway the beams were enclosed. Mhm. Now the work got even more dangerous. These were the highest bridge towers ever built, 746 ft above the water bridge. Worker frenchy gales remembers one frightening day on top. And

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I sat down and my friend that I worked with, he said, what's the matter? And I said jeez, I don't know, I guess I got a dizzy spell or something like uh swaying, although he said it's the tower is an earthquake or something, he said the

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tower's shaking so I joined the rest of them, they were all lined up there wondering what the hell do I couldn't get off of it and then she'd sway over, you know? And the guys here we go and then kind of shivering and go back in

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back. The guy said it had a From from one end to the other suede, 33 ft and the boy, she was like a whip so everybody was scared. The guys were throwing up and the guy that was in the the elevator and run outside the tire

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and cable, he was banging against the side of the thing, he was laying down in the bottom, he threw up all over himself and everything else. Sick, you could have a practice carrying more off. So when the elevator got down, everybody got off and they all

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quit. They all went home for the day. They were going to finish the day or nothing. He just left. But the next day they were back as if nothing had happened. Yeah, By the summer of 1935 the towers were ready for their cables. Mhm. On top

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of each tower, a 150 ton steel cap called a cable saddle had been fitted. It rested on rollers. The idea was that as the cable was hung and its weight pull down on the towers, the saddles could roll back and forth. That allowed the towers to

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stay in a perfectly upright position. Then when all the cable was hung, the saddles would be bolted down permanently. Now, for the first time in history, the channel was closed while a ship towed a rope across. Yeah, yeah, marin and san Francisco were finally joined. Next,

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they hung two catwalks from shore to shore. It was the longest span ever, with the tallest towers ever. And it would take the longest cables ever. There were no such cable. So they had to build them wire by wire. First they fasten each wire to the

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eye bars on shore. Then a pulley carried the wire across as fast as they went. The men still fell behind the production schedule. Then someone got the bright idea to use two pulleys. They would start from opposite shorelines, then meet in the middle and swap wires,

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then back they'd go, they added more pulleys, then more until the men were working six times as fast 1000 miles of wire a day. A giant compressor squeezed the wires into a cable and steel bands were put around it. Then it was wrapped with wire and

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painted 3.5 years after the ground breaking, the bridge was right on schedule. Despite the pace and the dangers, only one man had been killed. Mhm. The last step in building the bridge and one that should have been the easiest was the roadway. It would be the

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most tragic. Mhm. By the fall of 1936, the men called the high steel workers had begun the last phase of building the Golden Gate Bridge, the roadway. Mhm. Yeah. They started by hanging suspender ropes of different lengths down from the big cable. Then the roadside girders

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were hung, then cross beams swung into place and below the roadway. The zigzag reinforcing trusses were attached, the massive beam swayed wildly in the wind. Once a section was done, the cranes would move forward on railroad tracks. Emily, the next one, the roadway progressed out from

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both towers at once to keep the weight on the towers equal from the shore line that fall, you could see the roadway ends curling up, it would take the weight of the complete roadway and the pavement before the span would sag to its proper curve work

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was going so smoothly. Plans began for an opening day. Yeah. Mhm. At this point, chief engineer Strauss did something that angered many. He ordered a manila rope safety net hung under the workers. He was criticised for spending $80,000 on it. But Strauss was getting almost obsessive

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about safety. This was the first bridge project at which men either wore their leather safety hats and tied off to rope safety lines or they were fired on the bay bridge. Men had walked off the end of the bridge in the dark and plunged to their

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death without these precautions, the net was the first ever. It made the workers relax and work faster. 19 workers fell into the net and lived it hung down so that when the liner queen mary first sailed under the net had to be raised so she could

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fit Yeah, Christmas of 1936 saw the bridge looked nearly done from the air work was underway on the toll booths, the roadway workers were welding the reinforcing bars and behind them. The concrete borers came by now the bridge held enough concrete to build a five ft

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sidewalk all the way to new york. Here's how they kept it from falling through the roadway. Once the steel reinforcing bars were all welded up on the roadway. The area underneath was covered with plywood sheets. Then the concrete was poured. Once it hardened workers climbed down

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onto a scaffold and peeled away the plywood underneath them. The protective net. On the morning of February 17, 1937 safety inspectors were on their way to check one of the Scaffnolds when a bracket on it snapped, Slim lambert and another man survived the fall. Only slim

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survives today. I was falling head down and I knew I had to straighten up and hit feet first or I'll never make it. And I was able to do that and I survived. I saw three different sets of shoes, feet sticking above the water and two

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were motionless, but one set we're thrashing. So I went to the assistance of that man and he was alive. All right. I see I had a big road and that then run and see Just thing going down. And two men, yes, two of them came out

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okay. The rest of them went down with a net scaffold. The whole thing down the debate. I was hoping to attract the Coast Guard's attention because they circled out to see several times and then went back under the bridge. But they never came out far enough.

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They called everybody to go home and said, go right straight home. So when they broadcast that they know that you want and the and an accident, you see. Eventually when the fishing boat, the operator picked this up. I thought he was going to go buy us

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too. He was off some little way And finally, before he quite got by us. He must have been at a 90° to us. I could see his. I finally spotted us and that was just like the sun coming out and birds starting to sing and what

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a feeling. 10 men died in that fall and it eventually claimed another victim joseph Strauss. It nearly broke his heart a year after the bridge was finished, he died. Yeah, the job of finishing the roadway. Continued. Workers finished hanging the custom made railings. Architect Irving morrow

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designed them wide enough apart that motorists could see through. He wanted a beautiful bridge, not just a functional one. So morrow chose the paint from his home in Berkeley. He had long admired the greens and browns of the marin headlands. He decided a rusty color called

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deluxe International orange would match the hillsides best 750 people petitioned against the color what they lost. Finally, the bridge was ready, May 27, Opening day. Mhm. 200,000 people poured under the bridge. They paid a nickel apiece. So many people came this first day, the toll machines

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clogged and they had to use buckets over the loudspeakers. A favorite song of the day, boo hoo. Mhm No, everyone wanted to be the first at something. So some more costumes or walked on stilts or carried coal After 12 hours, the bridge was closed, cleaned and

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readied for opening day. # two, the first day of cars. Sarah Popper had by now been chosen the 17 year old Bridge Fiesta Queen. Remember all the girls around? I remember people waving and hooping and hollering. It was the most fascinating feeling in my life of

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crossing that bridge because I never believed that it was possible that we could go from one end to the other across the water. 35,000 cars paid the 50 cent told that first day the party went on for a week. Mhm polk street became a wild west

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town. Okay. Chrissy field had a festival, Market Street had a parade. It was exciting. It was, we rode on a float. I remember there were 15 of us. I can remember the gown I wore. It seems like it was only yesterday. It seems very very Near

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rather than 50 years ago. The workers, none of them had a part in the ceremonies. The public was curious as can be and they came out and people walking across the cars going across and some of the work when we're still working. A few just fine.

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A little touch up things and some were just there out of curiosity, but we weren't involved in the celebration any other way. Slim Lambert sailed off to Hawaii Fred Perry worked till he was 71 then retired to Santa Rosa Sarah popper moved to san Francisco fell

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in love and married. She still works in an East bay clothing store and san Francisco and marin were married to buy that bridge. The gold band that joins them has caused a lot to happen in a moment. Some of the triumphs, tragedies and trivia, A Chilly

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Winter Day. In 1936, this airborne photographer records a scene about to disappear forever on a hillside in Marin County, a home movie buff does the same thing. They capture the empty hillsides of marin sausalito. A few farms Highway 101 along Richardson Bay, just two lanes in

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san Francisco. The Presidio hilltops are bare the huge eucalyptus trees are still just seedlings. And then the aerial photographer captures the one thing that will change these hillsides and the lives of millions of people forever. The bridge about to open Some of this film was hidden

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for 50 years and has just been released from a bridge vault. It shows a period called before the bridges that was ending forever. It was a different world entirely. It was an innocent villa, an innocent village in a way and we felt like we were members

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of a very special club. The first change caused by the Golden gate bridge was in the view. A handful of artists argued it would deface the channel forever. Just for fun, you be the judge. The bridge also created economic change. On the first day it carried

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35,000 cars, 50 cents one way by contrast getting a car across by ferry boat cost a dollar In 1937. The Bay was crisscrossed by dozens of ferries carrying tens of thousands of people each day. Okay, mm. Today only a handful are left and making money is

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a struggle. Yeah, thank you. Another victim. The marvelous railroad system in marin County to the northwestern and pacific ran from marine communities down along Richardson Bay to the Sausalito Ferry. Combined trip by rail and ferry was often faster than the same trip today over the bridge,

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but proponents of the automobile one and the rail lines shut down today, their tracks have been replaced by jogging paths. But if the bridge brought an end to some things, it also brought new beginnings. Even before it opened. The promise of a span pushed up property

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values in quiet little marin county And 50 years later, Marin contains many of San Francisco's richest suburbs, population, a quarter of a million and still growing. The bridge did fulfill its biggest promise. It gave san Francisco room to grow connecting the peninsula with the redwood empire,

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the north to the south. Perhaps more surprising is that the bridge also came to connect east and west America and the pacific. Once you determine how this electron behaves, you will know exactly how all the other electrons behavior in the quiet of his boardroom at san

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Francisco State University. Dr Zhao wei Wu talks physics with a colleague. Dr Wu is also president Wu. The only asian president of a major american university 32 years ago. He was a teenager leaving his native Shanghai for a new land. All of the ship. There were

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hundreds of students and the first thing that struck our eyes was this bridge that was known that we knew was the Golden Gate bridge but it wasn't golden, it was red. We saw the city on the right and we saw some green islands on the left

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and one of them had to be the Angel Island. It was years before Wu realized that Angel Island represented the dark side of the Golden Gate bridge In 1909, Angel Island became a detention center for all immigrants from the Pacific most were processed out in a

00:29:39.050 - 00:30:04.720

few hours. But the Chinese were forced to wait anywhere from three weeks to three years. They wrote anguished poetry on the barracks walls. Some committed suicide. Mhm. Today President Wu and other asian americans are working to repair the damage. They sponsor student and cultural exchange programs

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between west and east. The bridge is very symbolic of the gate that's opened to them so that they can come here for the students to learn what they come here to learn. Not only technology, not only business management but also learn about americans. And so that

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bridge in a way is a gate in another sense, it's a bridge across the pacific. I would sometimes like to refer to that as the new silk Road for the chinese. The men who built her never dreamed she would become a symbol of hope but she

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is and they also never dream that for some, the bridge would become the end of the line today. Over 1000 people have committed suicide from the bridge. No other place has claimed so many. It is such a disturbing fact of life that bridge workers carry signal

00:31:04.590 - 00:31:27.360

flares in their golf cards to help the Coast Guard locate jumpers down on the tower foundation. There is a storage locker full of body bags. This woman is being rescued by surfers. She has just jumped but she has lived. Only 17 people have the problem the

00:31:27.360 - 00:31:45.990

experts say is that people think the bridge is a romantic way to die at the san Francisco coroner's office dr Boyd stevens knows he receives the victims at the Coast Guard four point station Petty Officer Kevin keeler and his young colleagues also know they retrieve the

00:31:45.990 - 00:32:05.840

bodies, ken baldwin knows better he attempted suicide from the bridge and live. I made a decision about three days before I jumped. I took two days to decide how and the next day I decided went and that was the day I jumped. Bridge has been popular

00:32:05.840 - 00:32:20.380

for a long period of time. Even when it was constructed, there were a number of deaths from the workers so that the height is key thing. A lot of these people are jumping hoping they'll never be found again. The old romantic, you know, be swallowed up

00:32:20.380 - 00:32:34.380

by the sea. It doesn't it doesn't work in this case because a lot of times we do find the victim and it's it's a pretty hard experience. I saw my hands leave the railing and I was terrified. The first thing that happens is they're caught most

00:32:34.380 - 00:32:48.870

commonly by an air current that flows under the bridge. As a result, it typically starts to tumble them. In other words, they start rolling and they're unable to control that so that how they hit the water is purely a matter of chance. The trip down was

00:32:48.870 - 00:33:08.260

very quick. I remember about a quarter of it. I remember seeing the water and then I blacked out. People who go off portions of the bridge can be blown back into the support Piers for the two columns. Some people who go off the bridge actually hit

00:33:08.260 - 00:33:26.580

the ground, they hit the water at 70 mph. A lot of the times legs, arms, a broken heads maybe partially severed from the neck. The next thing I knew I was in the water swimming by swimming for my life. I knew I wanted to live. We're

00:33:26.580 - 00:33:37.520

looking for the person we get on scene. We're looking for him and I guess some of us in the back of our minds hopefully maybe we don't find because of some of the the condition of the people are in and the next thing I knew I

00:33:37.520 - 00:33:54.590

was on the Coast Guard cutter. And they were asking me who I was, what day this was what I had done. They couldn't stress enough. Do you know what you've done? Simply stop romanticizing that this is essentially a harmless or painless or easy death. It's not.

00:33:54.820 - 00:34:10.140

This is what I'm trying to do now is starting to tell people, look what happened to me. I almost died. I almost killed myself. You need to get help. That it's something that that we have to do. It's free. It's required of us to go out

00:34:10.140 - 00:34:25.760

there because we are searching or were trying to help. That person could be alive. My surviving shows that their hard work wasn't for nothing. It was really for something. They really gained a lot by saving me by saving my life. They provided the world with something.

00:34:26.240 - 00:34:48.400

Mhm. Uh huh. Three footnotes, ken, baldwin's grandfather helped to build the bay bridge. And when we finish this interview, he decided to go to the Coast Guard Station to meet the men who saved his life. And not long afterward on the bridge, a flare was out

00:34:48.400 - 00:35:28.210

again for someone else who made a terrible mistake. She looks pretty sturdy out there. It's a hard thing to believe that an opening day. Some people wouldn't walk across for fear the bridge would collapse. Well, it's a good thing. They couldn't see into the future. These

00:35:28.210 - 00:35:55.900

criss cross beams weren't there When the bridge was built, They were installed in 1953. Only after a severe windstorm showed the Slender Bridge had a dangerous tendency to undulate up and down By the 60s. The next trouble spot appeared the suspender cables, chief engineer dan moen

00:35:56.060 - 00:36:11.330

the fifth in the line of caretakers. Some of the suspender ropes that we replaced. The wires were so soft that I could take my pocket knife and just chip them away around the edges out of outer wires. Mhm. That's what the weather can do can turn

00:36:11.710 - 00:36:43.040

steel high grade steel into something that's as soft as cake. All the suspender cables have since been replaced. Next. It was the roadway. Years of traffic and storms led to metal fatigue and the dried salt on the roadway actually made it heavier. in the early 80s,

00:36:43.140 - 00:37:15.250

the roadway to was replaced as chief engineer. Mon said earlier. The bridge started corroding prematurely because the builders didn't sandblasted before they painted it. Then there's the golden gates. Hellish weather. The location of the golden gate bridge, right in the mouth of the golden gate is

00:37:15.250 - 00:37:31.100

one of the most severe, naturally corrosive areas in the world, paint manufacturers use the Anchorage under the south end of the bridge to put a little sample little coupons on their paint in a weathering rack because they can tell in a very short time. Two or

00:37:31.100 - 00:37:50.690

three years whether they're paint, Whether they're paint is any good or not, add it all up. The bridge is rotting, but moen says technology is improving just in time by sandblasting the steel and using new vinyl paints by replacing the old rivets with bolts and the

00:37:50.690 - 00:38:07.280

old steel with newer, stronger metals. There's no reason why that steel dick shouldn't last for as long as the remainder of the structure at least another 100 years. In fact, there's even talk that someday the towers are cables could be replaced without even shutting the bridge

00:38:07.280 - 00:38:32.810

down. But what about a natural catastrophe? The experts say. The bridge could survive the big quake And as for wind, this storm in 1983 gave the bridge one of its worst tests yet hurricane force winds. It closed the roadway, listen to the noise of the cables

00:38:32.900 - 00:38:57.720

and the swinging roadway and look closely at some of the cables vibrating. But if the bridge can survive all this, can it survive the test of relevance. Mon sees traffic increasing to the point that a second deck may be needed. No problem. He even has the

00:38:57.720 - 00:39:18.840

drawings. It's technically feasible, engineering lee possible To put a lower roadway within the existing structure, recognizing that we now have a lightweight steel deck that reduced the weight of the bridge, 11,500 tons and the lower roadway would weigh only 8000 tons. It would still, we could

00:39:18.840 - 00:39:38.490

still put that lower roadway in there and the bridge would be lighter than it was with the old concrete deck. Today's dollars, perhaps 250 million. It wouldn't wouldn't change the shape of the bridge wouldn't deepen the stiffening truss uh from a quarter of a mile away,

00:39:38.490 - 00:39:50.430

it wouldn't even be able to tell that there was a lower roadway on there and 100 years from now. What does the chief engineer want to look down from heaven and see the bridge is running at capacity highway 1 to 1 to the north is running

00:39:50.430 - 00:40:06.560

at capacity. Something is going to have to change. Well, I hope I'll be able to see the beautiful Golden gate bridge and just as it is today, well preserved, well maintained. But with the second deck light rail vehicle. How about something that doesn't even rest on

00:40:06.560 - 00:40:26.340

the bridge which is guided by um induction wires across the bridge in the cosmic scheme of things. I think that's the way it was all built in that we would that although the bridge originally when constructed wasn't capable of withstanding the severe weather for a long

00:40:26.350 - 00:40:53.830

period of time that that technology was coming and it did come and we now will be able to preserve the life of the Golden gate bridge up next a trip to the top. Mm Yeah. Even before the bridge open, curious citizens were trying to sneak aboard

00:40:55.910 - 00:41:16.840

1936 2 young men crawled across the cables one night and left their calling cards today. Only a few rate a trip to the top of the towers. Original bridge workers or politicians. And recently members of the soviet consulate. It's mhm. Here, courtesy of the bridge workers.

00:41:16.940 - 00:42:15.310

Your own trip to the top of the south tower. For security reasons. They've asked us not to show you how the elevator works. Yeah. No. Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm, mm hmm, mm. Yeah. Mm hmm, mm. Oh

00:42:26.200 - 00:42:49.470

yeah. Mm hmm. Meet Greg Abbott. He recently earned a ride to the top of the tower. Greg is a third generation electrical contractor. His grandfather helped wire the bay bridge. His father wired Shasta Dam. Greg Abbott is lighting the golden gate. That's my favorite structure and

00:42:49.470 - 00:43:02.760

I love it. And when I had the opportunity to bid it, I worked real hard with a bid. When I found out in fact I had got it, I was really ecstatic, lucy got him down a little bit. We're putting up some structural steel catwalks in

00:43:02.760 - 00:43:15.300

order to gain access to the lighting below. There's nothing down there right now. It's an empty bay with nothing else around it except 250 ft of water on the left and on the right. So it's a unique experience for my crew and everybody has given me

00:43:15.300 - 00:43:29.750

a complete support. Of course everybody wants to be a part of this project. That's going to be something that everybody's gonna be looking at for a long time to come and I want to make it a good finished product. I was born in san Francisco and

00:43:29.750 - 00:43:41.950

I'd never been across the bridge until I first started construction on the bridge And so I think my basic appeal was well finally you get out to go on the bridge itself and see what it's all about. It's kind of an embarrassing point for a native

00:43:41.950 - 00:44:05.900

san Franciscan. Just a few hours from now, the bridge will finally be lit. The last dream of the original architect Irving morrow. K R O N T V will cover the lighting and the whole birthday party from start to finish. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. In just a

00:44:05.900 - 00:44:22.880

few minutes at five o'clock News Center four will broadcast live from the bridge with a recap of today's bridge walk the ship parade and the other events at six. Tonight jerry graham will be back live on the bridge with a special edition of Bay Area backroads

00:44:23.050 - 00:44:40.740

and at eight Sylvie and I will kick off a two hour live special as the bridge is finally lit and the fireworks spectacular begins then we'll wrap up the whole day with our final newscast. News center four at midnight right after the perry mason special. So

00:44:40.740 - 00:44:53.550

there she is 50 years old and all ready for the big party. We should all look that good. We hope you'll stay with us all night for all of the birthday coverage. It's sort of our way of saying thanks to the heroes who shivered up there

00:44:53.550 - 00:45:19.980

to leave us this gift of gold, Good night everyone. How do I feel about the Golden Gate Bridge. I feel about it as though um it's new. It was fascinating. It was something to experience. Like going to Disneyland. I was really happy to have been able

00:45:19.980 - 00:45:39.540

to get on the bridge because If I didn't want to work here, there'd be about 30 or 40 other guys that wanted to get on because Work was, it was a harder depression in 1933, Yeah, I like to compare the Golden Gate Bridge to a beautiful

00:45:39.540 - 00:46:03.080

lady or a well maintained role price. They're ageless. What I see of the bridge today probably has a lot more meaning then in those days because I have played in many ways the role of a bridge myself. Yeah. one thing about working up in the air

00:46:03.090 - 00:46:18.340

on heights, it either bothers you or it doesn't, there is nothing you can do about it, paint when it gets wet, it's very slippery. We don't make our men go down and do it. It's up to their discretion. I've gone down a couple of times. Yes,

00:46:18.890 - 00:46:35.100

it was a real thrill. I got rid of all of my acrophobia. I've dealt with one family that had a brother that had jumped, we took them out on the boat and they laid a wreath underneath the bridge. Mhm. We deal with the best we can.

00:46:36.880 - 00:46:55.680

It's an amazing structure. It's still odd me to look at it. It's amazing. It's something that that I can see through different eyes more than other people is that it almost took my life. It almost killed me and I lived through it. I was lucky. Very

00:46:55.680 - 00:47:18.970

lucky. I remember when they drove the last ribbit, I was supposed to be in gold river and the governor was supposed to use the rivers gown. But when he hit the rivet, it blew off in the bay. The Golden Gate Bridge at 50. Her story. Her

00:47:18.970 - 00:47:45.500

secrets has been brought to you by Wang Laboratories, Wang. Makes it work by PG and E. And by your northern California Toyota dealers for genuine Toyota parts and service. See your local northern California Toyota dealer. He's got more for you. Mhm. Uh huh. Mhm, mm hmm,

00:47:46.580 - 00:48:22.600

mm mm mm hmm, mm. Mhm. For yeah, mm. Mhm. Mhm. No,