THE GOLDEN GATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23203, 29 May 1937, Page 13

THE GOLDEN GATE

SUSPENSION BRIDGE OPENED NAZI FLAGS IN DECORATION A SWASTIKA TORN DOWN (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) SAN FRANCISCO, May 28. (Received May 28, at 11 p.m.) The Golden Gate suspension bridge was formally opened The span was patrolled by 200 police to prevent suicide attempts. The Maritime Association boycotted the event as a protest against the inclusion of Nazi flags in the decorations. Earlier in the week a swastika was torn down in Market street. Germany lodged an official protest, and an apology was tendered.

THE BRIDGE AT THE GATE (From Our Own Correspondent) SAN FRANCISCO, April 26. The Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta is set for May 27 to June 2, 1937, and after the celebration of May 28 the longest suspension span in the world will be-open for both vehicles and pedestrians. The historic stretch of water at the entrance to San Francisco Bay will not be the same with this splendid engineering accomplishment joining the counties of San Francisco and Marin, and enabling people to travel-rapidly, from the metropolis into Northern California and out into the wider spaces, without having to use the familiar ferry boats. There is universal regret that the building of the bridge was accompanied by a tragedy that caused the loss of ten workers' lives in one accident. A scaffold broke and the safety net beneath was unable to stand the strain. The eddies of the turbulent water carried the bodies to sea. ■

The United States fleet is to participate in the opening exercises. On May 28 the war vessels will pass under the Golden Gate Bridge, preceded by the 266 land-geared planes aboard the U.S. .carriers Saratoga, Lexington and Ranger. Continuing on, the airmen of the fleet will flock in a great massed sky parade over San Francisco. Preliminary to the official opening, the last rivet, made of pure gold from California's mining area known as the Mother Lode, will be driven on April 27. The ceremony will closely follow the famed "golden spike" event of May 8, 1869, when the transcontinental railroad was joined at Promontory, Utah. There ■will, however, be one difference. Governor Leland Stanford of California, in 1869 had the " golden spike" withdrawn after the crowds left, and it now reposes in the Stanford University museum at Palo Alto. The donor of the golden rivet has taken all the necessary precautions to make sure that the completion of the Golden Gate bridge conforms to the agreement with the authorities, that the rivet of gold is to remain where placed* Picturesque language is used by the officials in charge of the celebration; "We will have cavalcades that will, figuratively, step out of the pages of history with colour, pomp and circumstance. The Dons of old will be richly dressed and the cowled padres will give a sombre effect. There will be a rolling pageant of the State's history. Four main night parades, fireworks, banquets, balls, sporting events, racing on water and on land, games, polo, swimming, shows and parades day and night, will provide entertainment for the hundreds of thousands of people who will attend the Fiesta. The greatest unit of horsemen ever seen in the west will delight onlookers. Three of the great night pageants will be set on a stage that will have as a backdrop the towering spires of the Golden Gate bridge, with sky-reach-ing redwood trees as the proscenium arch. Three thousand actors on the great stage of thj Fiesta, a weeklong living dream, whose colours have been stolen from history." Aiter such glowing sentences from the fertile imaginations of the bridge publicity experts, it is a little difficult to get down to prosaic facts. One hundred thousand tickets have, been printed for the pedestrians who will have the bridge to themselves on May 27. Each ticket is.one foot by three feet, and contains a colourful picture of the Golden Gate and the bridge, with descriptive material. The tickets will be sold at a nominal price. The 35,000,000-dollar Golden Gate Bridge is 4200 feet in length, its single span being 400 feet longer than the Brooklyn Bridge and 700 feet longer than the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River, in New York. Its towers rise 746 feet above water, 191 feet higher than the Washington Monument, and will serve as aerial beacons. Construction commenced on January 5. 1933. The paving of the 60-foot roadway on the bridge was completed in mid-April, and the laying of the IOJ-foot side-walks on either side of the span will be finished shortly. The toll for each automobile with a driver and up to four passengers will be 50 cents one way, with a charge of five cents for each additional passenger. Heavier vehicles, like .trucks, will pay slightly higher fates. Soon the Golden Gate Bridge, like the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge of more than eight miles, will be accepted as a matter of course. Each is a marvel of engineering construction and a tribute to those who planned and put their faith in the land that touches the Pacific Ocean.