The Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a symbolic building that connects the city of San Francisco with Marine County, California.  It stretches for nearly two miles through the Golden Gate, a narrow strait that opens to meet the San Francisco Bay Pacific Ocean.  When construction began in 1933, the dream of connecting San Francisco with its northern neighbors came true.  In the midst of the Great Depression, when there was an opportunity for stable employment, treacherous conditions prevailed in the construction of roads and towers on open water.  The Golden Gate Bridge, which opened to the public in 1937, remained a true landmark in the picture and an engineering marvel.
To the amazement of modern engineering, the Golden Gate Bridge is 1.7 miles long and 90 feet wide.  The main distance of 4200 feet between its two towers was the longest distance for a suspension bridge until 1981.  Its 746-foot towers became the tallest bridge of any type until 1993. The Golden Gate Bridge withstood the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 but was closed to traffic only three times during its first 75 years due to weather conditions. Considered to be the most photographed bridge in the world, it was named one of the Seven Wonders of Civil Engineering in the United States in 1994 by the American Society of Civil Engineers.