WEBVTT - The Magnificent Golden Gate Bridge 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:11.160 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.760 Hanging Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.159 and Jerry's hanging with us too, and it's Stuff you 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:21.919 should Know. And we're headed west and yeah that's so. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.120 Yeah. I mean we're recording on the Golden gate Bridge. 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:32.160 I guess this is like two weeks wow, two weeks 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.400 to the day, I think, what from our live show 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:36.880 in the city of San Francisco. 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:39.720 That's true because it's the fifteenth in our show's on 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:40.440 the twenty ninth. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.000 That's right on a rare Thursday, oh show. Yeah yeah. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.000 Oh by the way too, I meant to mention, and 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:48.920 I hope this is okay with you. I got booked 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.920 to do a show on Friday, and I haven't mentioned 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.400 that to people, but on Friday, I will be performing 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.960 in the Hanging with Doctor z show. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:02.360 Do you know Doctor Zayas? 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:03.960 Yeah? Do you know about this? 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:05.880 No? No, no, I don't know anything. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.840 This is the one in which comedian Dana gould Is. 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.440 He owns a professional like full blown doctor Zais costume 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.800 and he's been doing this for years and it's like 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.560 a talk show with him as the host. Is doctor Zaiahs. 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.880 So I'm on that and I'm very excited because not 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.600 only is Janet Varney and it co founder of sketch 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.320 Fest and dear friend, but Dave Foley. I get to 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:31.800 be on stage with a kid in the hall. 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:34.440 What and man, that's going to be amazing. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:36.759 Yeah, and the great Andy Daly. So if anyone wants 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.080 to see that on Friday night, just go to the 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.840 sketch Fest website and check it out. I think it's 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:43.400 at kind of one of the small comedy. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.759 Clubs, do you know? Okay, so it's it a comedy club. 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.400 Yeah, it's one where I did movie Crush one year. 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:49.440 I can't remember the name of it. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.480 Though, Well do you remember how to find your way 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:52.040 back there? Though? 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:54.000 I hope so. 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.560 I hope so too. That's awesome, man, congrats, and yes, 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.320 I second that everybody should go see it. You're in 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.680 San Francisco or not, because I'm sure that's gonna be awesome. 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:04.240 Yeah, I mean you can come. I imagine you'll be 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:08.120 on a plane home huh yeah. Yeah all right, but 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:08.480 thank you. 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.320 I appreciate the invite. I'll be there in spirit supporting you. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.359 You text me immediately after and be like it was 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:18.320 a triumph or no, it won't be anything but a triumph. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:20.280 Alright. So Golden Gate Bridge. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.080 Yeah, that's why we started talking about California and San 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.200 Francisco in the first place. Because if you don't bother 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.480 to look at the titles of episodes and you just 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.000 let it roll one end of the other. That's what 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.720 we're talking about in this episode, the Golden Gate Bridge. 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.120 There's a pretty good chance you know what we're talking about. 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.240 It's often named as the most photographed bridge in the world. 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:41.600 I could believe that. 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:47.000 Yeah, it's my second favorite. What's your first Brooklyn bridge? Man? 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.600 Okay, it's got to be to bb Okay, all right, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.480 all right, what about you. I don't know. I don't 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.600 know that I have a favorite bridge. I kind of 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.639 like the ones that look like sailboats. There's a few 0:02:59.639 --> 0:02:59.840 of those. 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:02.760 Yeah, those are nice. A Tower Bridge in London is 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:03.920 also quite magnificent. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:11.000 Sure, and then I'm gonna sound so obnoxious, But in Budapest. 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:12.960 It's not obnoxious. 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.360 No, just being like, what's your favorite bridge? Oh, mine's 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.000 in Budapest. No, but they have I think seven different 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.280 bridges and they went they did seven different designs for 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:24.520 all the bridges that go through the city and connect 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:29.040 Buddha to Pest, right, And it really is like a 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.040 city of amazing bridges. They're all just really well done 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:33.520 and they're just different. It's cool. 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.680 I agree. I forgot about that well. Also, I mean, 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.840 since we're shouting out bridges, we can't not talk about 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.560 Pittsburgh because I went to a baseball game there in 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.720 that beautiful stadium and you get those beautiful bridges there. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:46.440 It's lovely. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:51.320 Yeah, it's like eight Bridges Stadium. Yeah, I think so, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:52.240 is that right? 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:54.840 Yeah? Okay, eight or twelve I think they call it 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:56.160 eight or twelve Bridges Stadium. 0:03:57.800 --> 0:03:58.360 That does. 0:03:59.040 --> 0:03:59.480 That's right. 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.080 So back to the Golden Gate. It's also, Chuck, one 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.000 of the seven Wonders of the modern World. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:05.120 I didn't know that. 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.080 Yeah, And the American Society of Civil Engineers named it 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.600 one of the Bridges of the Millennium in two thousand. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:13.120 Wow. 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:18.159 So it's a well regarded bridge. And if you've always 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.440 wondered or always thought like, hey, I guess the Golden 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.080 Gate bridge is called that because the I guess the 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.200 weird orange color is roughly golden. I don't know, you 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.279 would be like me probably like you, chuck, and that 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:31.400 would mean you were wrong. 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:36.000 That's right, because Golden Gate very much predates the construction 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.359 of that bridge. And with that we come to our 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.039 first story. 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:45.039 Okay, I'm gonna make like a horse sound while you 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.280 tell the story, so this guy will be riding a horse. 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.000 Okay, you got two ads of coconuts and you're banging 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:54.680 them together. Eighteen forty six. This is the Mexican American wartime. 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.560 It's going on, and there's an army officer in the 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.600 United States named John Fremont who basically said without sounds like, 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:07.240 without even asking anyone, hey, California's independent from Mexico. At 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.360 one point he was crossing the San Francisco Bay there 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.000 from Sonoma to San Francisco to fight the Mexican army there. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.520 And he named that boy, you're really doing a great job. 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.160 And he named that mile wide strait that connects the 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.840 bay to the ocean. What would that be chrysophil. 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:26.520 A can't stop. 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:33.039 Oh no, there he goes off into the sunset. I 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.440 guess chrysophile which means Golden Gate. And later on, rather 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.039 than the Greek version, he went with the English and 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.560 that passage was called the Golden Gate. 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.520 That's right. So this is the bridge over the Golden Gate. 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:50.480 Right, did you know that? No? Not, I was yesterday 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:51.320 years old, as they. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.480 Say, yep. So yeah. And the Golden Gate in particular 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:56.760 is pretty neat, not just because it's like the it 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.440 connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean, but geographically 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.440 it's like three hundred feet deep right there, but on 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:10.159 the shelf in the Pacific side it's much shallower. And 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.120 then in the bay, so the bay is like an 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.640 average of fourteen feet deep or something crazy like that. 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.360 So it just suddenly goes like this huge depression. And 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.280 this is what they needed to cross, like a three 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.920 hundred foot depression through the Golden Gate with a bridge. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.279 And I think the first person to ever suggest it 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.359 was a guy named Charles Crocker. And one of the 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.719 reasons they needed a bridge, Chuck in the first place, 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:36.400 is because if you ever look at a map of 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:40.120 San Francisco, it's actually a peninsula, so it's connected to 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.880 the south, to the rest of California, but there's a 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.360 lot of stuff to the north of that. To get 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.640 to the north, you have to cross the Golden Gate. 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.400 So people were like, we've got to get here to there. 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.680 You know, we like Marine County, We like Pedaluma. We 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.560 like to say Pedaluma at least. Yeah, Sacelito is another 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.960 fun one to say. So they started with fairies and 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.480 that worked just fine. But as more and more people 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.280 showed up, Tim Francisco was a magnet for immigrants, especially 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.560 after the Gold Rush of eighteen forty nine, they were like, 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.560 we might need something better than just fairies, like especially 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.280 if we want to run railroad cars. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.720 Yeah, and Jack, that ferry was expensive, man. Yeah. They 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.440 were actually just like tanker boats, but they would double 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.480 as ferries and say, yeah, sure, we'll take you across. 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.360 It was two dollars ahead, which is almost seventy dollars today. 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.760 Yeah, and you got range teams. Yeah, I saw seventy 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:35.720 seven dollars even. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:37.720 Wow, that's even more outrageous. 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.480 And they gave you saltines and grape kool aid. That 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.040 was the only food you had on. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.760 Board, just like Southern Baptist Communion. 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:47.560 That's what I had in nursery school. It's actually a 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:48.440 winning combination. 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:50.680 And that was pretty good, especially if you're in church 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:52.120 and you're like hard up for snacks. 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.880 So oh, there was finally one called up the Princess. 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.680 It was a side wheel paddle wheel steamer. That was 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.240 the first official ferry that happened at eighteen sixty eight. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.440 But that guy Charles Crocker, all the way back in 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.360 eighteen seventy two, he said, we need a bridge. And 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.160 the reason why he said we need a bridge is 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.080 because he was a railroad guy, and he's like, we 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.200 need to get railroads up there. We need to get people, 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.440 we need to move lumber, we need to do all 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.960 sorts of cool stuff. So let's let's get a bridge, guys. 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.720 Yeah, And people are like, there's no way. That's two miles. 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.680 No one's ever built a suspension bridge that long. And 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.240 in nineteen sixteen there was a San Francisco Sun journalist 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.120 who used to study engineering named James Wilkins. He said, 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.680 now I think we can build a suspension bridge. It'll 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.679 be three thousand feet and it'll cost in those days 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:48.000 dollars one hundred million dollars, which is almost I'm sorry, 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.840 it's more than three billion today. So everyone said that's 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:54.240 probably not going to happen either. So eventually it took 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.680 a city engineer named Michael O'Shaughnessy to be on the 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:00.959 lookout to say, we do need a bridge, but we 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.920 got to get this cost lower. Enlisted a guy in 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.439 nineteen twenty one from Chicago name an engineer named Joseph Strauss, 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.360 who said, here's what we do. Everyone. It is possible, 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.600 but it can't be a straight suspension bridge all the 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.280 way over, and it can't be just a cantilevered bridge. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.640 The suspension will be too flexible and FLEXI with those wins, 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.160 and the cantilever would be way too heavy. So if 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.240 we do a combination of the two, I think that's 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:31.440 the winning idea, and it'll cost you only seventeen million dollars. 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.600 Yeah, that was much more in line with what the 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.400 city engineer knew that the city of San Francisco would 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.360 be willing to pay for something like that, right right, Yeah. 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.720 Joseph Strauss, he became the central figure of the Golden 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.079 gate Bridge. He's often credited to the man who built 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.080 the Golden gate Bridge. That's a genuinely unfair thing to say, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.040 because so many people contributed so much to it. But 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.280 he was he was not a shy person. He could 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.719 work with just about anybody. He knew how to work 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.160 the system, and he was not a self promoter, but 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:09.040 he definitely was after the acclaim of being the man 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.000 who built the Golden Gate Bridge. So just kind of 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.640 put that in your in your pipe for later. 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:15.440 Right, don't smoke it yet though, right. 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.920 No, no, don't don't spark it. But he enlisted a 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:24.320 guy named Charles Ellis, who is like the I don't 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.200 know how you would describe him. I can't think of 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.360 an analogous movie character, but I feel like we can 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.840 get him across a little bit. He was obsessed with 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.520 making sure that this bridge was not going to collapse. 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.680 Yeah, I would describe him as a math whiz. He 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:38.360 was the guy. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:38.920 Uh. 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:42.560 I think we did the when we did the New 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.000 York Subways episode, we talked about the tunnels that went 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:45.880 under the Hudson River. 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:46.560 M hmm. 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:48.640 He was a guy that came up with that plan. 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:53.520 And so that's a pretty good dude to get if 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.880 you're trying to build a bridge that no one thought 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.720 could be built at the time, right, like super super 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:00.760 math guy. Just keep math in your head, because, as 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:02.640 we'll see, math would end up being his undoing. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.480 Yeah, but he was not after a claim He did 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.400 not I get the impression necessarily know how to work 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:11.760 with everybody or work the system. He just wanted to 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:13.360 do his math stuff, right. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:13.840 Yeah. 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.120 So he was a good guy to have in that sense. 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:18.640 And one of the reasons why he was so good 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.720 is because the design process was so long. At one point, 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.920 as we'll see, they just completely scrapped Strauss's idea and 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:25.760 started over. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:27.120 Yeah. 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.880 Financing was also a thing. I mean, Strauss had gotten 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.199 it down to an estimate of seventeen million, and I'm 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.440 sure anybody who was paying any attention was like, we 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.839 should plan on probably at least double that, just about right. Yeah. 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.720 But the state was interested enough that in nineteen twenty 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.600 three they passed the Golden gate Bridge and Highway District 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:49.000 Act of California, which basically said to the people in 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.520 the surrounding twenty one counties, Hey, you guys want to 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.199 get in on this and basically vote for a tax 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.920 district that can create debt to borrow money basically again 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:01.880 in Star counties. What do you think? 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.200 Yeah? And they said, well, what does that mean. That 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.240 sounds weird And they said, well, it means that all 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.400 the businesses and all your homes in your county are 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:14.079 going to be put up as collateral jointly against that loan. 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.679 And surprisingly, maybe six out of the twenty one county 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.200 said we're in. We see this progress as something that 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.560 we need. As far as the remaining counties that weren't 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.200 into it, you know, some of the obvious reasons is 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.199 they just didn't want to do that. A so I'm 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.840 worried about the cost overruns and like, hey, this isn't 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.400 even going to be enough. Other people didn't. You know, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.200 this was the early nineteen twenties, so it was still 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.320 you know, kind of a I mean it was a 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.480 bustling city for nineteen twenties, but there were areas of 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:51.480 rural you know, ruralness sure across the other side, and 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.839 like they were like we don't want this bridge, Like 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.280 we've got livestock over here and we're cutting down our lumber. 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.200 And even back then they had conservation this agitating against 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:05.320 stuff like this. Notably the Sierra Club was like, we 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.760 don't want a bridge in that beautiful bay. And there 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.120 were a lot of other people that came out with 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.440 a lot of good reasons to bring up lawsuits, like 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:16.640 you know, earthquakes. It was one in nineteen oh six. 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.240 That was recent enough to where like what about this 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.680 earthquake thing, Like, what if that happens, yeah. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.320 The first big one. Yeah, shippers were like, well, you know, 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.000 we can make it through the Golden Gate of the 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.640 Pacific pretty easy. Right now, we're a little worried that 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.120 just building this bridge is going to hamper our ability 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:38.000 to make mad cash. The Department of War, which had 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.480 a heavy presence in that area, it was like, look, 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.560 we run like really important warships in and out of 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:47.520 this harbor. We're worried that this bridge is going to 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.679 block our progress. But then also we're worried that it's 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.200 going to become a real target for saboteurs and that 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.640 they will blow up the bridge and block the harbor 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.320 with the debris. And then the Southern Pacific Railroads stepped 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.240 up and said, we run the ferries, like we're going 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.040 to lose a bunch of money if you guys build 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.480 a bridge. So all these people together were either parties 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.079 to or had their own lawsuits against the bridge authority 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.480 saying like no, you can, you can't do this, And 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.120 against all of those odds, the people in favor of 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:19.920 the bridge managed to overcome that. 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:22.800 Yeah, and before we break, I do want to mention 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.880 before we get some email, we mentioned Apartment of War 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.880 not in bended knee to Pete Hegseth. That was the 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.720 original name that later became the Department of Defense. 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:35.200 Yeah, I forgot that, which and. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.800 Then all again now yeah, is now to the tune 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:40.680 of what I just read was going to cost one 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.360 hundred and twenty five million dollars to change that name 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:44.800 back to the Department of War. 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.320 So another one hundred and twenty five to change it 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.240 back to the Defense Department again eventually. 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:52.680 Probably, So, so I just want to point that out. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:15:16.440 Let's take a break and we'll be right back. So 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.000 the first design, this hybrid design was pretty ugly. There. 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:21.400 It was a critic that said it looked like an 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.280 upside down rat trap. So they said, all right, we 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:26.360 got to redesign this thing because it's got to look good. 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.360 Ellis gets together with consulting engineers leon I guess that 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:36.160 would be moisseyf and oh Aman, and they got together 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.440 with Strauss and they said, all right, let's go back 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.480 to this old idea, but a new design of a 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:46.520 full suspension bridge. Yeah, the longest one ever and it'll 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:48.600 end up being the tallest one ever at the time 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.080 at least, because you know, all the winds in the 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.600 water and the boats and everything, this thing needed to 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:55.840 be tall and super long. 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.280 Yeah, and it also needed to be tall because the 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.000 angle of the cables to hold up such a long 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.640 deck had to come down at a crazy angle. Yeah, 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.640 which meant that those towers had to be really tall. 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:07.960 So this is going to be the tallest bridge in 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.520 the world, the longest suspension bridge in the world. And 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.200 they're like, let's do that, Let's make the impossible happen. 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.480 And it's fourth pointing out chuck, Like, these guys aren't 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.120 using CAD, they're not using any sort of computer. They 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.320 do not exist yet. They're not using calculators. They're doing 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:29.960 all of these calculations by hand, using their noodles, paper rules, 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.080 slide rules, pencils, Like, that's how this bridge was designed. 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.560 That's how they calculated the stresses on it. That's how 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.760 they figured out how to engineer it, all by hand 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.280 and using their heads. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.560 Yeah, amazing. They did all kinds of testing, obviously some 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.800 pretty impressive stuff. As you'll see, they create a model 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.280 that was one fifty six scale took it to Princeton 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.480 University there in New Jersey and did a scale down 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.640 equivalent of one hundred and twenty million pounds of vertical 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.560 load to tests to make sure those towers could take 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.199 that past that test. And like I said, there was 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.520 so much math going on. Eventually Strauss got irritated. So 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.920 the guy Ellis that they hired because he was great 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:18.119 at math, got fired because the math was so irritating 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:18.760 to Strauss. 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:23.040 Yeah. Ellis later recorded that Strauss said that the structure 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.960 was nothing unusual and didn't require the time that Ellis 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.280 thought necessary for it. Oh man, I also saw elsewhere 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:35.119 somebody say that Strauss was envious or resentful of I 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.919 guess the respect that Ellis got from the board whenever 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:39.120 he went and spoke to them. 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:39.800 I could see that. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.560 So yeah, this is And I also think that Strauss 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.000 was getting leaned on. He was the one that was 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.800 getting pressured to meet the time, and Ellis was like, no, 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.159 it's going to take six months more than that. So 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.160 finally Strauss fires Ellis in the most like cowardly way 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.080 a person can. He forces him to take vacation, and 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.960 then before his vacation's over, he's ends him a telegram 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:01.880 saying you're fired. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.800 Yeah, that's pretty bad. Ellis didn't receive a lot of 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.440 credit at the time, and in fact, he didn't get 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:10.720 a lot of credit until after he passed away in 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.040 nineteen forty nine. So we're taking our hat off to you, 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.680 mister Ellis, for your great work and your great math, 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.119 because we are both math whizzes ourselves, and we have 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:21.560 a lot of respect for maths. 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:25.280 That's right. He also he didn't have anything to do. 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.040 He couldn't really find much work because this was during 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.800 the depression and he was fired. He went back and 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.080 he went over all the figures again, all of the 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:36.280 calculations to make sure they were right. He was spending 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.960 like seventy hours a week and it took it months. Geez. 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.080 And he did. And he was like, Yep, this is 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.119 going to work, even though no one was listening to him, 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.119 he wasn't being paid for it. He just wanted to 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:47.879 make sure that this thing was going to work. 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.760 That's great. So in nineteen twenty eight, they kind of 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.000 mired their way through, or got their way through, the 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.240 mire of the legal activity and all the protests and everything. 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.639 The state government California said the Golden Gate Bridge and 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.960 Highway District is now a thing. They're going to pull 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.879 off every facet of this build. And in November nineteen 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:12.400 thirty the district issued thirty five million dollars in bonds 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.800 to finance this thing, which was a problem at the 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.200 time though, because it was during the Great Depression, obviously, 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.920 and they couldn't find any buyers for these bonds, and 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.119 all these legal matters were scaring people away, and so 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.960 they turned to kind of one of the heroes of 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.919 this whole thing in nineteen thirty two, a guy named 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.560 Amadio Giannini, the president of Bank of America. 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.040 Yeah, one of the most revered and respected banks in 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:42.159 the world. Everyone loves Bank of America. They're basically a 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.399 mascot here in the US, that's right. 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.320 And he was also just a California hero. He kind 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.680 of kickstarted the Hollywood movie industry, the California wine industry. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:54.280 So he was a guy to go to and he 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.720 was like, I got you. I got a big room 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.560 with six million dollars over here, and I'll buy those 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.560 bonds and you can get started on your project. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.320 Yeah, which is pretty cool. And he is one of 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:09.280 the heroes for sure, so they got started. They started 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.920 during the depression, as we saw, and on the one hand, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.120 that meant financing it was difficult. On the other hand, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.399 it meant that they had a huge pool of laborers 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:20.159 to tack because there are a lot of out of 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.680 work people. So they got everyone they needed basically immediately 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:28.560 to get started. It started on January fifth, nineteen thirty three. 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.720 And there are a lot of issues that construction face 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:37.040 that made this a unique construction job. Every day, four 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.760 times a day, so two times in and two times out. 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.359 The tide brings in and takes out three hundred and 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.560 ninety billion gallons of water through the Golden Gate. While 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.879 these guys are trying to build their bridge. There's tons 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.800 of fog, there's a lot of storms, there's high winds. 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.399 It was not just like a walk in the park 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.879 like apparently the Bay Bridge was to build. 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.919 Yeah, I mean apparently the Baybridge is more impressive in 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.320 some ways and was built and finished before, but it 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.960 didn't get nearly the press because it was just an 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:08.840 easier job overall. 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.760 Right, It's like eight miles long, which is the exact 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:16.840 distance from downtown Detroit to Eminem's house, and. 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.159 I didn't see that coming when you said Detroit, I 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.520 didn't even see it coming. Nice work, thanks, all right. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.840 So it's a difficult job, super super hard because of 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:28.960 the terrain and the water and the wind and the 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.840 fog and everything going on. The north tower was built 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.240 on the Marin County side on the coastline there into 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:40.480 a very strong layer of basalt and sandstone, and that's great. 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:42.200 So they were like, the north side is fine because 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.439 this stuff is very, very sturdy to build into. The 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.840 south tower was about one thousand feet off shore and 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.720 a bed of serpentine rock, and they went, this side 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:53.480 is a little trickier, so we're gonna have to take 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:54.360 our time a little more. 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.720 Yeah. They got this guy named Andrew C. Lawson. He's 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.120 a great example of how many people were thoroughly involved 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.720 in this because every person you mentioned in this story, 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:09.240 just imagine there's dozens or maybe hundreds of people working 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.880 beneath them in coordination with that person. He was a 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:18.600 geologist and he basically took to test the bedrock. He 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:21.000 I'm not exactly sure how he did it, but he 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.680 put the equivalent of a railroad box car fully loaded 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.320 that amount of weight and force onto a twenty square 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:34.080 inch area and it held up fine. Something it is. 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.520 I could not find out how he did that exactly. 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.600 It's just such a spectacular way to put it that 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.480 I guess everyone's like, no one cares what actually happened. 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:43.600 Yeah, just tell me he did it. 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.160 And then he put on an old timey diving suit 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.119 and diving bell and went down to the bedrock and 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.000 hit it with a hammer. And apparently if it makes 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:55.960 this sound like a dinging sound, that's what you're looking for, 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.200 because not only is it strong, but it's also flexible, 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:02.400 which is going to come in handy whenever the San 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.119 Andreas gives California the big one, the eight point six 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:11.680 magnitude earthquake that everyone says is inevitably coming someday. 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.639 Yeah, for sure. In order to ensure that, you know, stability, 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:19.240 they had workers dive ninety feet down to put explosives 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.480 down to blast out even more rock so they could 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:24.520 go even deeper. They had to get rid of those 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:28.240 fragments to even get out to that tower. You know, 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:30.720 they have all these materials, so a lot of big 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:34.119 construction like this is constructing things so you can do 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.760 the construction. And that was the case here. So they 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:39.879 had to build a road basically on a trestle just 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:43.640 to get out to that tower, and then they had 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.639 to protect this thing from like being bumped into by 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:47.080 a ship. 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:50.840 Yeah. If you look at the concrete foundations that the 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:55.560 towers are built on, you'll notice that they're like oval 0:23:56.520 --> 0:23:59.760 and those were designed to basically act as fenders, kind 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:04.200 of like if you play bumper bowling. Okay, it's basically 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:06.600 like that, and imagine the bowling ball is a ship 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:09.840 that's being captained by somebody who's not paying attention. Huh, 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:14.280 probably on his phone. Yeah, yeah, and they will hit 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:18.000 that fender, the bumper, and it will keep them from 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.480 running into the actual tower itself, and because of the 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:24.640 oval shape, hopefully kind of push the ship away from 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:25.800 the fender itself. 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:30.760 Yeah. Well, the captain says, what was that? Yeah, they weren't. 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.320 I think they said it looked like a giant bathtub 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:38.600 is what they referred to it. But you know, they 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:40.800 filled that thing once it was peaking above the surface, 0:24:41.040 --> 0:24:45.280 partially with concrete, pumped out the water, reinforced it with steel, 0:24:45.520 --> 0:24:48.320 more concrete, and all of a sudden, you've got a 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:53.720 protected tower with that that Billiard's bumper bowl. Bumper bowl? 0:24:55.200 --> 0:24:55.960 Is that what you called it? 0:24:56.359 --> 0:24:57.080 Bumper bowling? 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:00.080 Oh okay, I thought you were talking about like bumper. 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:03.800 No, no, no, bumper bowling where they put those guard rails down 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:04.879 in the gutters. 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:08.240 Yeah, we went bowling last week and Ruby still uses those. 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:12.080 I do too. Sometimes I can still manage to miss 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:14.240 pins bumper bowling. 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:16.439 But oh okay, I thought you might just roll a 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:18.040 gutter balls like man who can't. 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:22.399 No, I think even bumper bowling, I can miss the pins. Still. 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:24.639 I did the usual. I know I've mentioned this before, 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:27.520 but with bowling usually for and I think the other 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:29.919 day I hit like a like a one forty and 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:31.080 then like a seventy. 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:33.680 I don't remember. Are those good? 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:36.840 I mean for someone who doesn't bowl much, I feel 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:38.040 like is a pretty strong number. 0:25:38.440 --> 0:25:40.520 Is that, dude? Or heyesus level good? 0:25:40.640 --> 0:25:40.800 Oh? 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:41.000 No? 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:44.359 No, No, like three hundred is a perfect game. Uh, 0:25:44.520 --> 0:25:46.520 But I mean one forty means you've hit plenty of 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:51.000 strikes and spares and probably had a good last frame out. 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:52.720 I don't know if that's what they call it, but 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:55.400 seventy is bad. My whole point was, though, is I'm 0:25:55.440 --> 0:25:57.440 good for one game? And then my my game really 0:25:57.520 --> 0:25:58.080 drops off. 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:00.640 Okay, well, were you junk by the second game? 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:02.399 No, no, no, no, no, I had I had but 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:04.840 one beer, a PBR draft. It was delicious. 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:07.560 Okay, yeah, sometimes those are the best ones, that really 0:26:08.000 --> 0:26:08.720 crowdy ones. 0:26:09.560 --> 0:26:11.720 I don't do that much anymore, but it was super 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:13.199 refreshing and delicious. 0:26:13.640 --> 0:26:13.920 Great. 0:26:14.400 --> 0:26:16.600 Yeah, that's Chuck goes bowling. 0:26:17.000 --> 0:26:20.480 Yeah and PBR uh huh. So you want to take 0:26:20.520 --> 0:26:21.280 a break. 0:26:22.040 --> 0:26:24.040 Oh yeah, yeah, we're there already. Let's do it. 0:26:24.160 --> 0:26:48.919 Okay, so Chuck, they've got the foundation poured. That's a 0:26:49.200 --> 0:26:52.680 nice fender a bumper around the towers. Apparently, once they 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:56.000 got that foundation done, they erected the South Tower, which 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:58.040 was the more difficult of the two towers, the one 0:26:58.080 --> 0:27:01.840 closest to San Francisco. They erected it in like six months, 0:27:02.600 --> 0:27:05.920 which is really amazing, especially as you find like that 0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:08.520 added up. That was not an anomaly for this project, 0:27:08.520 --> 0:27:12.800 that kept like hitting milestones ahead of time, and that 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:16.040 used quite a bit of steel thanks to Bethlehem Steel 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:20.200 Corporation of Pennsylvania. And as we know from our Christmas episode, 0:27:20.240 --> 0:27:22.960 the reason it is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is thanks to our 0:27:22.960 --> 0:27:25.240 Moravian friends who moved there in the eighteenth cents. 0:27:25.320 --> 0:27:27.639 Right New Jersey chips into gott gotta shout out New 0:27:27.680 --> 0:27:29.320 Jersey for sure. 0:27:29.440 --> 0:27:31.320 I don't believe the Moravians had much to do with 0:27:31.359 --> 0:27:32.080 naming New Jersey. 0:27:32.240 --> 0:27:34.080 No, no, no, But as far as the steel goes. 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:39.480 Okay, yes, And so Bethlehem Steel provided forty four thousand 0:27:39.600 --> 0:27:44.159 tons of steel for each tower. That was each tower, 0:27:44.640 --> 0:27:47.800 and this is not like a quick thing. They prefabricated them, 0:27:47.840 --> 0:27:49.760 put them on a barge, and then sent them to 0:27:49.760 --> 0:27:54.600 San Francisco, down the East coast, passed Florida, through the 0:27:54.640 --> 0:27:57.280 Panama Canal, and then up to San Francisco. That's how 0:27:57.320 --> 0:28:01.960 every single piece of steel, fabricated steel made its way 0:28:02.240 --> 0:28:03.359 to the Golden Gate project. 0:28:03.400 --> 0:28:06.000 Yeah, that's right, via the Panama Canal. They get there, 0:28:06.160 --> 0:28:09.639 they obviously use these giant cranes to lit these steel 0:28:09.760 --> 0:28:12.679 sections into place and start kind of just putting this 0:28:12.720 --> 0:28:16.120 thing together like a kit. At this point, and at 0:28:16.119 --> 0:28:18.760 this point they haven't even you know. Eventually they had 0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:21.679 temporary elevators built so people could get up and down quicker. 0:28:21.680 --> 0:28:24.800 But before that it would take a worker twenty minutes 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:27.879 just to climb a ladder. I can't imagine how terrifying 0:28:27.920 --> 0:28:31.080 that would be just to be climbing a ladder that high, 0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:34.080 that takes twenty minutes to climb. But that's how it 0:28:34.160 --> 0:28:37.959 got to the top. And then we get to the color. 0:28:38.640 --> 0:28:41.120 Like we mentioned before, it's not named Golden gate Bridge 0:28:41.160 --> 0:28:43.880 because of the color, because it's really not golden in color. 0:28:45.000 --> 0:28:48.560 It got there, like we said, prefab then it was 0:28:48.600 --> 0:28:52.760 painted with an orange just red lead primer just to 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:55.120 kind of make sure it made the journey there okay, 0:28:55.160 --> 0:28:59.160 without getting rusted out. And once it got there, consulting 0:28:59.560 --> 0:29:03.760 architect Irving Morrow said, man, that looks pretty darn good. Everybody, 0:29:03.760 --> 0:29:06.920 what do you think? And everyone went bully bully, And 0:29:07.000 --> 0:29:09.880 so they started searching for sort of related colors and 0:29:10.080 --> 0:29:12.920 ended up landing on what is now known is Golden 0:29:12.960 --> 0:29:14.800 gate Bridge International. Orange. 0:29:16.240 --> 0:29:17.760 I would have kept my mouth shup, but I would 0:29:17.760 --> 0:29:20.080 have been looking around, like you guys think that looks good. 0:29:20.440 --> 0:29:21.720 That's the color we're going. 0:29:21.560 --> 0:29:24.040 To paint the mean to green personally, but. 0:29:26.840 --> 0:29:29.280 Okay. So one of the things that is great about 0:29:29.280 --> 0:29:31.880 that particular color orange, And I think one of the 0:29:31.880 --> 0:29:35.640 reasons people said bully for it was because it didn't. 0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:39.800 It didn't well, it harmonized with the surrounding area. It's nice, 0:29:40.000 --> 0:29:44.240 hilly shrubby it like. It was a good choice for 0:29:44.280 --> 0:29:46.120 sure for that, and I think it also kind of 0:29:46.120 --> 0:29:48.800 placated a lot of people too there like that actually 0:29:48.880 --> 0:29:51.600 kind of goes with everything. It doesn't stick out like 0:29:51.640 --> 0:29:54.280 a sore thumb. So it was a good idea, and 0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:57.920 that International orange is still used today. You can thank 0:29:58.240 --> 0:30:01.440 International orange for the color of your life vest if 0:30:01.440 --> 0:30:02.680 it's orange. 0:30:02.240 --> 0:30:05.680 That's right. That is just regular International orange. The golden 0:30:05.680 --> 0:30:08.720 gate bridge International orange is a little different. It's like 0:30:08.760 --> 0:30:11.760 a variation on that, but like you said, it blended 0:30:11.760 --> 0:30:13.680 in well. And it also did you know, the job 0:30:13.720 --> 0:30:16.080 that it was really supposed to do was stand out 0:30:16.280 --> 0:30:20.160 for ships and boats there in the fog. Rejected colors 0:30:20.200 --> 0:30:24.440 included silver, black, and then black and yellow, which was 0:30:24.520 --> 0:30:27.880 suggested by the US Navy, like you know, stripe, black 0:30:27.880 --> 0:30:30.920 and yellow, because that was the best color for visibility 0:30:30.960 --> 0:30:31.280 to them. 0:30:32.480 --> 0:30:34.600 It's the best color for Christian metal too. 0:30:35.320 --> 0:30:39.600 That's right. It's funny because I can that striper. This 0:30:39.640 --> 0:30:42.800 stuff looks so good, but I can't picture a bridge 0:30:42.840 --> 0:30:46.880 in yellow and black stripe. It just looks too safety industrial, 0:30:46.960 --> 0:30:51.440 you know, or cliffs nose? Yeah, yeah, true. 0:30:52.000 --> 0:30:54.720 Didn't the dude, the drummer from Striper have black and 0:30:54.840 --> 0:30:56.560 yellow striped drum sticks? Even? 0:30:57.360 --> 0:30:59.680 I think he had a black and yellow striped everything, 0:30:59.680 --> 0:31:00.520 if you know what I mean. 0:31:01.880 --> 0:31:04.440 Oh, I see he had a black and yellow stripe Gnomon. 0:31:09.040 --> 0:31:12.240 Let's keep going, boy, that's good, all right? So Marrow 0:31:12.320 --> 0:31:15.560 we mentioned Irving Morrow. He's the consulting architect who said, like, 0:31:15.600 --> 0:31:18.520 I'd like this color. He also obviously played a part 0:31:18.520 --> 0:31:22.720 in a lot of the aesthetic aesthetic aesthetic decisions. That's tough, 0:31:23.000 --> 0:31:26.640 good band name, but also bad esthetic. No one could 0:31:26.640 --> 0:31:28.360 ever say it, are you going to see tonight? The 0:31:28.480 --> 0:31:35.440 aesthetic decisions. One of the things that he designed aesthetically 0:31:35.640 --> 0:31:38.360 was to make it look a little taller. Was those 0:31:38.360 --> 0:31:42.360 tower panels decrease in size from bottom to top. Pretty 0:31:42.400 --> 0:31:44.080 good idea, yep. 0:31:44.920 --> 0:31:48.120 And the well I guess Lawson was like, let's do this, 0:31:48.200 --> 0:31:49.720 and let's add a little bit of this and maybe 0:31:49.720 --> 0:31:53.280 put bows on the top kind of thing. Strauss, who 0:31:53.320 --> 0:31:55.200 again is the man at the center of all of this, 0:31:55.680 --> 0:31:57.960 he was way ahead of his time as far as 0:31:58.000 --> 0:32:01.240 safety goes. Apparently, the Golden Project was the first one 0:32:01.520 --> 0:32:05.880 that required hard hats on site, which is not fairly ubiquitous. 0:32:05.960 --> 0:32:06.840 Yeah, good little fact. 0:32:07.960 --> 0:32:12.080 Yeah. And then he also created a safety net that 0:32:12.200 --> 0:32:14.440 was movable, so I think the people who were in 0:32:14.480 --> 0:32:18.600 the highest risk of falling to their deaths got to 0:32:18.800 --> 0:32:21.240 use the safety net while they were up their work. 0:32:21.360 --> 0:32:24.520 Yeah, and use it they did, because that thing ended 0:32:24.600 --> 0:32:29.080 up saving the lives of nineteen construction workers. They became 0:32:29.160 --> 0:32:31.640 known that those nineteen became known as the Halfway to 0:32:31.720 --> 0:32:35.680 Hell Club, which is pretty funny in a way. But 0:32:35.720 --> 0:32:39.640 there were some deaths. In February thirty seven, scaffolding collapsed 0:32:39.880 --> 0:32:43.920 due to an accident, thirteen men on it. The net failed, 0:32:43.920 --> 0:32:47.840 and ten of them died. But in the end, eleven 0:32:47.960 --> 0:32:52.680 people died from this project, which is pretty good. I mean, 0:32:52.760 --> 0:32:55.600 it's awful that eleven people died. But for the time, 0:32:55.760 --> 0:32:58.480 they would say, like for every million dollars of a project, 0:32:58.520 --> 0:33:00.959 you can expect one death, And this thing came in 0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:05.120 at like thirty five million or so, so they expected, 0:33:05.240 --> 0:33:08.040 you know, thirty to forty deaths and there were only eleven. 0:33:08.160 --> 0:33:10.160 So that was that was I guess a win for 0:33:10.240 --> 0:33:11.760 safety for the time at least. 0:33:12.920 --> 0:33:15.720 Yeah, for sure, I find that a really strange rule 0:33:15.720 --> 0:33:18.360 of thumb. For every million spent, you can expect to death. Like, 0:33:18.400 --> 0:33:21.640 I guess what that's based on is just the complexity 0:33:21.840 --> 0:33:25.840 increases by the price. I may're the height something. 0:33:25.920 --> 0:33:28.760 Yeah, probably just that means it's it's big and difficult 0:33:28.920 --> 0:33:32.040 and complex. I think you're right, But it's definitely the 0:33:32.040 --> 0:33:35.200 only thing the way to calculate something, it really is. 0:33:37.080 --> 0:33:40.640 So, yeah, there's thirty four people dead in one person's like, 0:33:40.840 --> 0:33:42.480 how much is this bridge going cost? 0:33:42.520 --> 0:33:42.560 You? 0:33:42.720 --> 0:33:43.960 Like thirty five? And you're in. 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:46.320 There's cost overruns and you know what that means. 0:33:48.680 --> 0:33:52.560 So they completed the towers, both towers in nineteen thirty five. 0:33:52.760 --> 0:33:55.800 Remember they started this whole thing. I think they started 0:33:55.800 --> 0:33:59.640 building that temporary roadway to the first foundation in nineteen 0:33:59.680 --> 0:34:04.800 thirty one. They're moving along, and after the towers would complete, 0:34:04.800 --> 0:34:09.319 it was time to create those four iconic cables that 0:34:09.360 --> 0:34:12.480 are the actual things that hold up the road deck. 0:34:12.600 --> 0:34:15.759 The bridge itself. The point of the bridge is held 0:34:15.800 --> 0:34:19.319 up by these cables. And if you see one of 0:34:19.320 --> 0:34:22.200 those cables in person, you will find that it is 0:34:22.320 --> 0:34:27.239 three feet one meter thirty six inches. Let's see, do 0:34:27.560 --> 0:34:32.160 it three hundred centimeters in. Let's see, it would be 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:38.080 a third of a decameter in width or in diameter, 0:34:39.320 --> 0:34:42.680 and it's actually made of twenty five thousand wires. Each 0:34:42.760 --> 0:34:44.840 of those cables are all twisted together. 0:34:44.960 --> 0:34:48.040 Yeah, and to get that done, they hired John A. 0:34:48.280 --> 0:34:51.960 Roebling's son's company is the name of the company, and 0:34:52.040 --> 0:34:53.920 they had worked on the Brooklyn Bridge, so they were 0:34:53.960 --> 0:34:57.359 obviously great people to call for that. But like you said, 0:34:57.520 --> 0:34:59.480 I think you said it was completed ahead of schedule. 0:35:00.239 --> 0:35:04.520 This was April nineteenth, nineteen thirty seven, about a million 0:35:04.680 --> 0:35:09.560 three under the thirty five million dollar budget. Just a 0:35:09.600 --> 0:35:13.120 little housekeeping here. It's one point seven miles long, ninety 0:35:13.160 --> 0:35:17.959 feet wide, holds six lanes of traffic, two sidewalks, seven 0:35:18.080 --> 0:35:21.120 hundred and forty six foot high towers, with the main 0:35:21.320 --> 0:35:24.680 span between them being forty two hundred feet and at 0:35:24.680 --> 0:35:27.560 his midpoint the span hangs two hundred and sixty five 0:35:27.600 --> 0:35:30.520 feet above the average height of the water below. And 0:35:30.640 --> 0:35:33.200 people were really excited to get on this thing. 0:35:34.080 --> 0:35:36.960 They were an opening day. The first day they let 0:35:37.000 --> 0:35:40.759 pedestrians across, the next day was cars, and at the 0:35:40.800 --> 0:35:43.800 grand opening. I think this kind of gets across the 0:35:43.840 --> 0:35:47.400 type of person Joseph strausswa he read a poem that 0:35:47.480 --> 0:35:50.440 he wrote for the day, and he was a poet, 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:54.760 so it's not bad. I like the rhythm of it. 0:35:54.040 --> 0:35:56.200 The meter sure is that correct? 0:35:56.280 --> 0:35:56.880 Yeah? I think so. 0:35:57.800 --> 0:36:00.000 I would say go look it up and read it yourself. 0:36:00.080 --> 0:36:01.160 I'm not going to read it. But it's called the 0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:04.799 Mighty Task is done by Joseph Strauss. The thing that 0:36:05.320 --> 0:36:08.640 bothers me, Aside from a couple of clunky lines, he 0:36:08.760 --> 0:36:13.000 says essentially like that all the people who are involved 0:36:13.000 --> 0:36:17.800 of this are glorified and that no selfish urge stains 0:36:17.840 --> 0:36:23.000 its life, no envy, greed, intrigue or strife. And I'm like, dude, 0:36:23.040 --> 0:36:29.040 he specifically didn't mention Ellis, Charles Ellis at this whole thing, 0:36:29.120 --> 0:36:31.400 and then he goes to the he has the audacity 0:36:31.440 --> 0:36:34.080 to say that that's not being done here at this 0:36:34.360 --> 0:36:35.400 grand ceremony. 0:36:35.760 --> 0:36:38.360 Yeah, and they built a Trellis so you had a 0:36:38.360 --> 0:36:40.280 word there in the bag. 0:36:41.040 --> 0:36:43.920 That's right, good point, Chuck Man. 0:36:44.600 --> 0:36:47.759 I don't know about Strauss, now, Yeah. 0:36:47.840 --> 0:36:49.840 He's not really talked about like that from what I 0:36:49.880 --> 0:36:51.960 can tell, I just kind of put this together from 0:36:52.000 --> 0:36:55.840 different different places. But there's a there's a bronze statue 0:36:55.880 --> 0:36:59.399 of him in Golden Gate Park, I think, and there's 0:36:59.440 --> 0:37:03.000 books about him and his amazing feet, And it's just 0:37:03.239 --> 0:37:05.440 I don't like people like that who take full credit 0:37:05.480 --> 0:37:08.000 for something that yeah, hundreds or thousands of people have 0:37:08.080 --> 0:37:10.719 done and that they did, like backbiting along the way 0:37:10.760 --> 0:37:13.520 with it. It's just I don't like people like that. 0:37:13.600 --> 0:37:15.600 I'm with you. He actually had a Trellis line. He 0:37:15.680 --> 0:37:19.440 was like, what rhymes with trellis? Hmm? I got nothing? 0:37:19.560 --> 0:37:21.840 Yeah, he scratched it out. 0:37:21.680 --> 0:37:23.880 Like Ellis is outside the window holding up a sign. 0:37:24.800 --> 0:37:25.839 The math checks out. 0:37:26.920 --> 0:37:30.200 I saw that. No one can say for certain whether 0:37:30.440 --> 0:37:35.120 Ellis ever saw the Golden Gate Bridge himself. I'm sure 0:37:35.600 --> 0:37:37.560 sure that he went and saw it at some point, 0:37:37.640 --> 0:37:41.800 because he died decade or two, yeah, a good decade 0:37:41.840 --> 0:37:45.200 after it opened, So I would guess unless he had 0:37:45.239 --> 0:37:48.600 like a horrible aversion at just the thought of the bridge, 0:37:48.600 --> 0:37:49.960 I'll bet he went and visited it. 0:37:50.160 --> 0:37:54.080 Yeah, I bet you're right. So we can compare it 0:37:54.080 --> 0:37:56.520 to other suspension bridges in a few ways, because I 0:37:56.560 --> 0:37:59.240 think that's fairly interesting. It's got a lighter roadway than most, 0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:03.480 it does not have train tracks on it, but it 0:38:03.480 --> 0:38:06.400 seems like that was one of the original ideas, is 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:08.120 they wanted a train to be able to run across 0:38:08.120 --> 0:38:12.160 that thing. But they realized that the winds were a 0:38:12.200 --> 0:38:14.840 real problem in nineteen forty after the to Come Up 0:38:14.920 --> 0:38:18.680 Narrows Bridge disaster, and they saw those things in forty 0:38:18.760 --> 0:38:22.279 mile an hour winds twisting around. They're like, we need 0:38:22.280 --> 0:38:24.279 to cause we get winds up to like seventy five 0:38:24.280 --> 0:38:26.160 miles an hour, so we need to stiffen this thing up. 0:38:26.719 --> 0:38:31.000 So they added horizontal trusses to stiffen the structure against twisting, 0:38:31.480 --> 0:38:33.720 and that's what brought the total weight of the deck 0:38:34.680 --> 0:38:37.560 too high, basically to where they could not end up 0:38:37.600 --> 0:38:38.960 putting railroad tracks down. 0:38:39.800 --> 0:38:42.000 No, like they were close to the limit of it. 0:38:42.040 --> 0:38:44.520 I guess right, yeah, I couldn't do it, Okay. 0:38:44.600 --> 0:38:47.760 So the Golden Gate it was the longest suspension bridge 0:38:48.440 --> 0:38:51.640 until nineteen sixty four when the Arizona Narrows took over 0:38:51.680 --> 0:38:55.040 that for a while. And like we said, there's Golden 0:38:55.040 --> 0:38:59.680 Gate Park that predates the bridge, but Golden Gate National 0:38:59.719 --> 0:39:03.040 Record Creation Area was created on either side of the 0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:06.600 bridge after the bridge was already around for a while, 0:39:07.080 --> 0:39:09.480 and there's some pretty neat things about it. One of 0:39:09.520 --> 0:39:12.719 the things we remember, we talked about how people were 0:39:12.719 --> 0:39:17.280 worried about earthquakes. Well, it actually survived the Loma Prieta earthquake, 0:39:17.280 --> 0:39:20.200 the nineteen eighty nine earthquake that took place when the 0:39:20.239 --> 0:39:22.719 A's and the Giants were playing each other in the 0:39:22.719 --> 0:39:27.160 World Series and just killed a lot of people. The 0:39:27.200 --> 0:39:30.719 Bay Bridge apparently a section of that collapsed and the 0:39:30.760 --> 0:39:33.640 Golden Gate survived with no damage whatsoever from when I 0:39:33.680 --> 0:39:34.920 could tell her, very little of it. 0:39:35.080 --> 0:39:39.400 Yeah, pretty good there. And this is something I heard 0:39:39.560 --> 0:39:43.120 early on in my life was that the Golden Gate 0:39:43.160 --> 0:39:48.640 Bridge basically is in constant paint mode basically, so like 0:39:48.719 --> 0:39:51.359 it's always being painted apparently, like it takes so long 0:39:51.440 --> 0:39:54.880 to paint and sort of you know, take care of 0:39:54.920 --> 0:39:58.160 the corrosion because of all that salty fog and salty 0:39:58.200 --> 0:40:01.560 air and water. Right, just it never stops. It's not like, 0:40:01.600 --> 0:40:03.080 all right, we're done and we're going to take a 0:40:03.080 --> 0:40:05.640 few months off. It's continuously being kept up. 0:40:06.520 --> 0:40:09.279 Yeah. And one other thing about the earthquake thing, they 0:40:09.880 --> 0:40:12.520 somebody at some point figured out that the San Andreas 0:40:12.560 --> 0:40:15.480 could produce at most of eight point six magnitude earthquake, 0:40:15.480 --> 0:40:17.200 and then they went and figured out that the Golden 0:40:17.239 --> 0:40:20.120 Gate would probably not be able to withstand that. So 0:40:20.200 --> 0:40:24.720 they started, I think back in well after the Loma 0:40:24.760 --> 0:40:27.200 Prieta earthquake in nineteen eighty nine, they started a bit 0:40:27.239 --> 0:40:29.800 of a retro fit to try to make it earthquake 0:40:29.840 --> 0:40:32.360 proof up to eight point six magnitude. And one of 0:40:32.400 --> 0:40:34.160 the things that they were having to shore up Chuck 0:40:34.280 --> 0:40:37.640 was that they didn't bolt the towers to the foundation 0:40:38.360 --> 0:40:40.719 because they're like, these are so heavy, we don't even 0:40:40.760 --> 0:40:43.200 need to waste the time or money on bolts. And 0:40:43.320 --> 0:40:46.160 an eight point six earthquake, they realized if you stay 0:40:46.200 --> 0:40:48.759 in stiffly with your leg stiff and then you kind 0:40:48.760 --> 0:40:50.359 of fall to the side and one of your feet 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:53.840 comes off the ground. When you go back to center again, 0:40:54.160 --> 0:40:57.200 your feet comes down, and imagine one of the towers 0:40:57.239 --> 0:40:59.520 doing that when it comes back down on that foundation. 0:40:59.600 --> 0:41:02.960 They're like, that foundation is not going to hold that up. Yeah, 0:41:03.000 --> 0:41:05.120 so that's what they're trying to retrofit. Now. 0:41:05.239 --> 0:41:08.640 Yeah, that's a big footstomp, is what they said for sure. 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:11.279 So we have to close now with some sort of 0:41:11.360 --> 0:41:15.799 darker stuff because the Golden Gate bridge, if it's known for. 0:41:16.400 --> 0:41:18.120 It's known for many things, but one thing it's very 0:41:18.200 --> 0:41:20.239 much known for is that there have been many many 0:41:20.360 --> 0:41:25.880 suicides attempted and completed over the years. They averaged about 0:41:25.920 --> 0:41:30.600 twenty per year for a very long time. Hundreds of 0:41:30.640 --> 0:41:34.720 others had been stopped by obviously volunteers that are stationed 0:41:34.760 --> 0:41:37.040 there to watch for this sort of thing. Bridge workers, cops, 0:41:37.400 --> 0:41:39.880 sometimes just random people like you see in a movie. 0:41:41.040 --> 0:41:45.280 And they took a very long time to eventually get 0:41:45.320 --> 0:41:48.640 a safety net, even though it was possible. They really 0:41:48.719 --> 0:41:50.560 dragged their feet getting that thing up, didn't they. 0:41:51.239 --> 0:41:53.319 Yeah. I saw that there was an opposition to it 0:41:53.360 --> 0:41:54.960 that included it will be ugly. 0:41:55.160 --> 0:41:56.680 Oh god, so. 0:41:58.160 --> 0:42:02.239 Every I think since the first guy who died by 0:42:02.280 --> 0:42:05.640 suicide's name was Harold Waber. He was walking on the 0:42:05.640 --> 0:42:08.520 bridge all the way back, just like a few months 0:42:08.560 --> 0:42:12.000 after it opened, and he was walking with a friend. 0:42:12.000 --> 0:42:13.480 He said, this is as far as I go, and 0:42:13.520 --> 0:42:15.640 he became the first person to jump to his death 0:42:15.680 --> 0:42:18.239 from the bridge. That was in nineteen thirty seven. 0:42:18.320 --> 0:42:20.960 Yeah, what a thing, What a last line, you know? 0:42:21.160 --> 0:42:23.359 Yeah, imagine being that friend and being like wait what 0:42:23.480 --> 0:42:28.279 and then yeah, yeah, I can't imagine that since then 0:42:28.520 --> 0:42:32.120 at least two thousand people, maybe a little more, probably more, 0:42:32.160 --> 0:42:34.319 because I think they assume that there's plenty of people 0:42:34.320 --> 0:42:36.920 who have jumped and their bodies were never found. But 0:42:36.920 --> 0:42:39.719 at least two thousand confirmed people have jumped to their 0:42:39.760 --> 0:42:43.080 deaths from the Golden gate Bridge. And in nineteen ninety five, 0:42:43.120 --> 0:42:46.200 the California Highway Patrol, which had been keeping an official count, 0:42:46.600 --> 0:42:49.400 stop their official count at nine hundred and ninety seven 0:42:49.480 --> 0:42:51.120 because they were worried that there was going to be 0:42:51.120 --> 0:42:55.800 a rash of suicides to become the one thousandth person 0:42:55.880 --> 0:42:58.720 to die by suicide by jumping off the Golden gate Bridge. 0:42:58.880 --> 0:43:02.600 So officially the count's nine and ninety seven, but I 0:43:02.640 --> 0:43:05.160 think most credible sources put it at over two thousand. 0:43:05.280 --> 0:43:09.319 Now, yeah, and what a thing to think about, What 0:43:09.440 --> 0:43:12.359 an awful thing to consider. But like, thank god they 0:43:12.360 --> 0:43:13.880 thought of something like that, because they're. 0:43:13.680 --> 0:43:17.320 Probably right, you know what the security net. 0:43:17.280 --> 0:43:20.960 No, the stopping the public count, because oh yeah, you know, 0:43:21.160 --> 0:43:22.960 I would never have thought of something like that, So 0:43:23.040 --> 0:43:26.160 I'm glad they thought of that. There was a really, 0:43:27.920 --> 0:43:31.920 I don't know what to call it, interesting and awful 0:43:32.040 --> 0:43:35.920 documentary from two thousand and six called the bridge. I 0:43:35.960 --> 0:43:38.880 saw it. I'm not sure did you see that one? Yeah, 0:43:39.200 --> 0:43:41.440 there's a lot to it. It was you know, the 0:43:41.480 --> 0:43:45.760 point was to drive awareness about this and about suicide 0:43:45.760 --> 0:43:48.319 and suicide prevention. But it was very controversial in that 0:43:48.760 --> 0:43:51.160 they captured footage. They had cameras you know, trained on 0:43:51.200 --> 0:43:54.520 the bridge from the mountains nearby, and they captured footage 0:43:54.560 --> 0:43:59.000 of twenty three suicides, including a survivor, and they you know, 0:43:59.120 --> 0:44:03.319 filmed family members and interviewed one about their loved ones. 0:44:03.680 --> 0:44:08.200 It's very moving and upsetting documentary from when did I say, 0:44:08.239 --> 0:44:09.000 two thousand and six? 0:44:09.440 --> 0:44:13.239 Yeah, it is so Yeah. That definitely raised public awareness 0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:15.719 and kind of I think amplified the public outcry about 0:44:15.760 --> 0:44:17.720 this and made people be like, wait, we probably should 0:44:17.760 --> 0:44:21.360 do something about this, because twenty to thirty people a 0:44:21.480 --> 0:44:25.439 year were taking their own lives at this time. Right. 0:44:26.040 --> 0:44:30.520 They finally, finally in twoenty the beginning of twenty twenty four, 0:44:31.000 --> 0:44:34.479 they finished putting up these safety nets essentially that stick 0:44:34.520 --> 0:44:36.040 out from the side of the bridge, so that if 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:37.920 you jump off the side of the bridge, you're going 0:44:37.960 --> 0:44:41.440 to land in the steel net. The whole thing costs 0:44:41.440 --> 0:44:46.080 two hundred and twenty four million dollars and completed suicides 0:44:46.160 --> 0:44:49.680 dropped by seventy three percent. Yeah, after they were installed. 0:44:49.800 --> 0:44:52.400 And even more amazing than that, I think there were 0:44:52.400 --> 0:44:55.440 two hundred attempts and thirty completed suicides a year on 0:44:55.520 --> 0:44:58.680 average after the nets were installed. That fell to one 0:44:58.760 --> 0:45:01.640 hundred and thirty two and eight in twenty twenty four, 0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:04.600 and there were no suicides in the last seven months 0:45:04.600 --> 0:45:07.560 of twenty twenty five. So these nets are actually preventing 0:45:07.560 --> 0:45:11.480 people from completing suicide and also deterring people from attempting 0:45:11.520 --> 0:45:12.400 suicide there. 0:45:12.760 --> 0:45:15.560 Yeah, and you know, they've done studies where they've interviewed 0:45:15.600 --> 0:45:21.680 people who did survive. Most of them don't ever try again, 0:45:21.800 --> 0:45:24.440 which is like very encouraging to know. I think there 0:45:24.440 --> 0:45:26.160 was a study in the nineteen seventies by a guy 0:45:26.239 --> 0:45:30.680 named Richard Sidon, and he followed up on five hundred 0:45:30.680 --> 0:45:33.560 and fifteen people who had been stopped These aren't people 0:45:33.560 --> 0:45:35.920 who jumped and survived, but they were stopped from jumping 0:45:36.680 --> 0:45:38.600 in the thirty five years prior to the study, and 0:45:38.600 --> 0:45:41.319 he found that only thirty five of the five point 0:45:41.320 --> 0:45:45.640 fifteen went on to die by suicide. So that's really 0:45:45.719 --> 0:45:48.560 great to know that if you can be an EMT 0:45:49.120 --> 0:45:51.680 or a police officer or a random passer by who 0:45:51.680 --> 0:45:54.799 can get someone out of that dire situation that there's 0:45:54.840 --> 0:45:58.040 a very very good chance that will be not something 0:45:58.080 --> 0:45:59.120 they go on to complete. 0:45:59.480 --> 0:46:02.960 Yeah, and you mentioned those volunteers that are stationed along 0:46:03.000 --> 0:46:06.200 the bridge just for that very purpose. I would wager 0:46:06.360 --> 0:46:08.640 that there's at least one stuff you should know a 0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:10.440 listener who does that, and I would love to hear 0:46:10.440 --> 0:46:10.879 from them. 0:46:11.520 --> 0:46:14.040 I bet you're right. And I hope someone comes to 0:46:14.080 --> 0:46:15.839 our live show and stands up at the end and 0:46:15.880 --> 0:46:19.239 tells everybody that they do that. I bet you that happens. 0:46:19.600 --> 0:46:23.200 Yeah, they will get thunderous applause. That's right. I feel 0:46:23.200 --> 0:46:24.880 like we should end on a high note. And the 0:46:24.960 --> 0:46:29.680 high note is the Golden Gate Bridge was where James 0:46:29.680 --> 0:46:35.120 Bond successfully defeated Christopher Walkin saving Tanya Roberts in The Bargain. 0:46:35.280 --> 0:46:37.800 That's right of you to a kill. 0:46:37.880 --> 0:46:39.640 Probably the best bomb movie ever. 0:46:39.960 --> 0:46:41.520 Hmmm, interesting, All right. 0:46:42.200 --> 0:46:43.680 I mean that was the one I grew up on, 0:46:43.760 --> 0:46:46.759 so that's probably why I like that. But there's no 0:46:46.920 --> 0:46:49.640 kid who grew up on like The Living Daylights and 0:46:49.760 --> 0:46:50.400 was like, that's. 0:46:50.239 --> 0:46:54.040 The good stuff. 0:46:54.880 --> 0:46:57.160 Chuck said, good stuff, which is where I was trying 0:46:57.200 --> 0:47:01.640 to push him because that unlocks the listener mail. 0:47:02.480 --> 0:47:05.560 All right, this is a chance to plug friends of 0:47:05.600 --> 0:47:07.800 the show here. Hey, guys, just finished the episode on 0:47:07.840 --> 0:47:11.279 the radio, the national radio Quiet Zone. Found it very 0:47:11.280 --> 0:47:13.920 fascinating and by the way, we got a few emails 0:47:13.920 --> 0:47:16.520 from people pointing this out. I want to reach out 0:47:16.560 --> 0:47:19.920 with a recommendation of one of the McElroy pods. The 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:24.000 maclroy brothers, Justin Griffin and Travis McElroy have long done 0:47:24.160 --> 0:47:26.239 my brother, my brother and me and I've known those 0:47:26.239 --> 0:47:29.040 guys for a long time. Super cool dudes. And then 0:47:29.040 --> 0:47:31.399 they do a show with their dad called The adventure Zone, 0:47:31.440 --> 0:47:33.560 which is where they play D and D and that's 0:47:33.600 --> 0:47:34.840 become hugely popular. 0:47:35.239 --> 0:47:38.040 That's awesome, man, Yeah, it's super cool. 0:47:38.040 --> 0:47:41.800 But the second season of Adventure Zone is called Amnesty, 0:47:41.920 --> 0:47:45.120 and it is well, it's a tabletop role playing game, 0:47:45.160 --> 0:47:46.319 so I don't know if it's always D and D, 0:47:47.040 --> 0:47:50.640 but Griffin has said it in the Green Bank area, 0:47:50.200 --> 0:47:53.080 so the folks in that area that it attracts and 0:47:53.120 --> 0:47:56.040 the lack of communication is a plot device and really 0:47:56.080 --> 0:47:58.680 drives a story. It's one of my favorites that they've done, 0:47:59.080 --> 0:48:01.480 I hold stuff you dealing with my heart. Thanks for 0:48:01.520 --> 0:48:04.440 doing what you do. And ps, I loved hearing a 0:48:04.480 --> 0:48:08.319 few of the macarroys on Movie Crush. I loved hearing 0:48:08.360 --> 0:48:10.920 josh on Behind the Bastards and so on all of 0:48:10.920 --> 0:48:13.720 my favorite podcasters. Crossing paths now and then really drives 0:48:13.719 --> 0:48:18.920 those parasocial bonds. So go listen to josh on Behind 0:48:18.960 --> 0:48:21.920 the Bastards your past episodes. You're on a couple of times, right. 0:48:22.360 --> 0:48:24.759 Yes, I was, and on Daily Zeitgeist. No, I was 0:48:24.760 --> 0:48:27.839 on Behind the Bastards once. I was on Daily's Seikeist. 0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:29.279 A couple of times, Zeitgeist a couple of times. And 0:48:29.320 --> 0:48:33.400 then I had Griffin on Movie Crush in his favorite movie, 0:48:33.400 --> 0:48:35.840 which he claims is not his favorite movie only but 0:48:36.040 --> 0:48:39.040 also the best movie was groundhog Day. 0:48:40.040 --> 0:48:41.239 It is a good movie. 0:48:41.440 --> 0:48:45.440 And I had Justin on and Justin I think I 0:48:45.440 --> 0:48:48.600 can remember every single guest in their movie. Still his 0:48:48.840 --> 0:48:49.640 was with Nail and. 0:48:49.600 --> 0:48:54.320 I I've never seen that. Isn't that a Morrisey album? 0:48:54.719 --> 0:48:57.360 I don't know, but it's a British independent film, so 0:48:57.360 --> 0:48:58.279 it wouldn't surprise me. 0:49:00.000 --> 0:49:02.200 This is Vauxhall and I okay with. 0:49:02.200 --> 0:49:05.000 Neil and I Richard D. Grant. It's it's really good. 0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:06.719 I think you and Yumi would both like it. 0:49:07.200 --> 0:49:08.680 All right, we'll watch it then, Chuck. 0:49:08.760 --> 0:49:12.280 It's from like the indie movie revolution of the nineties 0:49:12.320 --> 0:49:15.160 and from England, and it's really really great. 0:49:15.920 --> 0:49:18.040 You know. I think I was talking smack not too 0:49:18.120 --> 0:49:20.480 long ago about pt Anderson. I don't know if it 0:49:20.520 --> 0:49:24.160 was on the podcast or not, and that I basically 0:49:24.239 --> 0:49:29.680 hadn't liked anything at his since Boogie Knights, Okay, maybe Magnolia, Okay. 0:49:30.719 --> 0:49:33.760 Then I saw One Battle after Another and I'm like, buddy, 0:49:33.800 --> 0:49:36.719 this guy is back in my estimate. Not only did 0:49:36.760 --> 0:49:39.080 he direct it, he wrote it too. It's a good movie. 0:49:39.160 --> 0:49:41.959 Yeah, he writ and directs all his movies. He Yeah, 0:49:42.040 --> 0:49:44.239 I loved, loved, loved One Battle after Another. I think 0:49:44.239 --> 0:49:46.320 it was my favorite movie the year that that in Centers. 0:49:46.360 --> 0:49:47.120 We're probably tied. 0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:49.799 I've not seen Sinners yet, is it? It's pretty good. 0:49:51.080 --> 0:49:52.960 It's all right, I'll check it out. Don't tell me anything. 0:49:52.960 --> 0:49:55.160 That's fine. All I needed to hear was oh man. 0:49:54.960 --> 0:49:57.560 Capital G grade and it's right up your alley. 0:49:57.960 --> 0:49:58.680 Okay. Cool? 0:49:58.840 --> 0:50:02.239 Great, And by the way, is from Ryan Pinto, who's 0:50:02.280 --> 0:50:04.919 coming to see us in Denver, and I'm sorry, Ryan, 0:50:04.960 --> 0:50:06.840 but we're not doing it on the pinto. We've already 0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:07.600 done that live show. 0:50:07.960 --> 0:50:10.200 That's a shame. You can go back and listen to 0:50:10.239 --> 0:50:12.560 it and imagine that you're there because we did release 0:50:12.600 --> 0:50:13.680 it eventually as an. 0:50:13.560 --> 0:50:15.360 Episode, and then he might have been who knows. 0:50:15.680 --> 0:50:17.759 Thanks Ryan, We'll see you in Denver. If you want 0:50:17.800 --> 0:50:22.759 to see us in Denver, Seattle, or San Francisco, where 0:50:22.800 --> 0:50:25.200 you can also visit the Golden Gate Bridge, you can 0:50:25.200 --> 0:50:27.320 go to stuff youshould Know do dot com and get tickets, 0:50:27.680 --> 0:50:29.600 And in the meantime, if you want to email us 0:50:29.640 --> 0:50:32.800 like Ryan did, you can send an email to stuff 0:50:32.840 --> 0:50:36.759 Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:50:37.880 --> 0:50:40.759 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:50:40.840 --> 0:50:45.000 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:50:45.120 --> 0:50:46.960 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.