Stretching across the San Francisco Bay stands the world famous Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge is located in one of nature’s most beautiful settings, spanning the mile-wide bay from Fort Point in San Francisco to the Marin County Shore. Joseph Strauss, specializing in bridge building, was the leader of the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The start of construction began on January 5, 1993 and, after four years, was completed on April 27, 1997. The bridge was needed to be built because of the growing population after the California Gold Rush. The bridge was a difficult task for engineers and is now an inspiration. The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the largest suspension bridges and is well known around the world. The Golden Gate …show more content…
He was most certainly familiar with the job.
In 1919, a study was begun to see if it would be possible to build a bridge across the Golden Gate. Michael O’Shaughnessy was the San Francisco city engineer. He was in charge of the rebuilding of the city after the devastating 1906 earthquake that destroyed much of the city. O’Shaughnessy knew the need for the city to have bridges. Most said it could not be done and others said it could be done but “it would cost about $100 million to build it” (Barter 23). O’Shaughnessy and Strauss, both wanting the same thing, got together. After the two consulted, they figured the only way to bridge the channel was to use a suspension bridge.
Once O’Shaughnessy and Strauss believed they could build the bridge, politics came into the picture. In 1923, the California state legislature passes a bill that allowed the establishment of a Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District. The district’s job was to oversee the project and run the bridge once it was built. Over the next few years, many people spoke up both for and against the building of the bridge. The land on both ends of the bridge was owned by the U.S. military. Before any plans could move forward, the military would have to approve the project and give the Bridge District permission to use War Department land. An army colonel was appointed to hold hearings on the matter and “for seven months, he listened to both
were very poor, but somehow, many architectural feats were being made. The U.S. Government was still building the greatest dam in the world before the Depression, the Hoover Dam, which lasted five years to build. It takes a lot of manpower and materials for the Government to build this great dam, so they hired contractors to build it and the The U.S. provides the materials. Men of six companies were hired to build the dam in 7 years or penalties will ensue; the men were called, Six Companies, Inc. Remarkably, the contractors banded together to build the dam because of the immense size of the structure, one contractor cannot do the task alone (America's Experiences). The Dams magnificent feat in becoming USA’s greatest dam inspired the same contracting firm to work on a certain bridge in the west (Hiktzik). During the time Hoover Dam was being constructed, out in the west, another architectural feat was occurring. In 1933 San Francisco, California, construction starts on what will soon to be one of America’s greatest landmarks, The Golden Gate Bridge. One of the bridges architects, Joseph B. Strauss, a man who built many bridges across the U.S., was involved in the bridge project. Strauss and his colleagues had to deal with many problems about the bridge such as people saying it had to be impossible or it was expensive and a hazard to the environment (History.com). Once the bridge was funded with thirty-five million dollars,
Ten miles up from the navigation lock, they thought the sediments were firmer so they dug into a piece of dry ground and built what looked like an incongruous, waterless bridge. Five hundred and sixty-six feet long, it stood parallel to the Mississippi and about a thousand yards back from the water: between its abutments were ten piers, framing eleven gates that could be lifted or dropped, opened or shut like
One of the few people that were going to fully push for this project would be William Tweed, a New York politician that was said to have a hand in every creek and crevice of business in the area of New York both legal and otherwise. Tweed began his career in 1851 by going from a simple fireman into an alderman and from then on he found that he no longer had to depend on honest work from then on and by 1869 or the time when the bridge would start to be build and the same year that its very own author of the great bridge would sacrifice his life for the sake of both his own pride and according to some accounts, the bridge’s success. By 1869, he was reaching the pinnacle of his influence as he was in his prime and doing everything that he set his mind to and this was when he would become the “Boss” of New York and from then on become known as Boss Tweed and he might as well been since judges made decisions based on his request, legislators passed or opposed laws at his will, and both the Mayor and Governor were in his pockets and were at his beck call. This was the Tweed Machine and it controlled every aspect of politics and was the epicenter
The report debates the Tacoma narrows bridge failure and the different theories of how it came about, using information about what type of bridge it is and the forces acting on it before and during the collapse. It also discusses ways in which the failure could have been avoided, from changes in the design to modifications to the bridge after its construction.
Sometimes the wind would not be perpendicular, in which the oscillation of the bridge was less, but there was still some oscillation. On November 7th, 1940, the Tacoma Bridge collapsed because the oscillation of the bridge became extreme. The oscillation of the bridge was caused by a wind speed of 42 mph (HistoryLink.org). After, approximately, an hour of a corkscrew like motion, the bridge collapsed into Puget Sound. This marked a huge turning point in the design of suspension bridges from that point in time to current time.
A bill was set, which was supposed to guide the construction of the railroad. Central Pacific Railroad was supposed to start the construction in Sacramento and push towards the
The same problem would occur every winter and political leaders thought it was time for a solution to be found. Every winter the East River would freeze over, making it difficult for the citizens of Brooklyn to get to New York City. A solution to this problem would be the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. With the backing of political boss, William Tweed the construction of the bridge would soon be underway. After 14 years of construction and much controversy the Brooklyn Bridge officially opened May 24th 1883.
Boston’s Big Dig was a massive road infrastructure project planned to improve the flow of traffic, alleviating chronic congestion across Boston and the surrounding commuter areas, and to replace the outdated elevated Central Artery road that effectively split the city in half. The plan was to replace the Existing Central Artery, a crumbling elevated six-lane highway, with an extended underground highway, and a 14-lane two bridge crossing that would Extend Massachusetts Interstate 90 from its former end, south of downtown Boston, through a tunnel under South Boston and Boston Harbor. This project would prove to be a technological marvel and the most technically challenging infrastructure ever undertaken in the US. Building a tunnel underneath
Yarden: While creating our bridge our initial plans were much different than what our final product was. The more we worried about the strength of the bridge, the less time we had. We started off with the idea to have a truss bridge made of wood and cardboard. As shown here, (show picture from journal entry), but as the project progressed our ideas continued to change.
The Bridge is an after school program in Johnson City New York. The Bridge is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays after the school day ends. The students that attend the after school program range from 4 years old to 17. At the program students are expected to complete homework, but are also offered a gym, and an arts and crafts area. As a volunteer the setting came be a little overwhelming, because things can get a little crazy. Once you are able to give into the chaos, however you can see how wonderful this program is. There are so many different activities you can do with the students.
In the book The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Brother Juniper witnesses the collapse of the San Luis Rey Bridge and the deaths of the five people who were on the bridge when it fell. This disturbs Brother Juniper greatly. He wonders if God intended this, or if it was merely a coincidence. In order to find out if it is coincidence or not, he gains as much information as possible on the five people who fell to their deaths on the bridge. He feels that if he can make a connection between all these people then he can figure out why God made this happen to them out of everyone in the world.
The making of the bridge impacted many people especially the people from San Francisco and Marin County, California. Before, the bridge people would have to cross the waters by boat to get to San Francisco or Marin county. Once the bridge was built people could drive and walk across and its 1.7 miles.
A railroad specialist named John Stevens took over as chief engineer in July 1905 and immediately addressed the workforce issues by recruiting West Indian laborers. Stevens ordered new equipment and devised efficient methods to speed up work, such as the use of a swinging boom to lift chunks of railroad track and adjust the train route for carting away excavated material. He also quickly recognized the difficulties posed by landslides and convinced Roosevelt that a lock canal was best for the
The basic design of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge itself was a suspension bridge with a center span of 2800 feet and two side spans of one 1100 feet (Farquharson, 1950, p. 17). Its two lane, reinforced concrete roadway was twenty-six feet wide with two 5 foot, 9 inch sidewalks (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). Overall the superstructure was 5939 feet, including the suspension structures, approach spans and anchorages (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). Anchorages were made of solid concrete and were fifty feet by 170 feet and were fifty feet high (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). The main towers which the cables saddle were 425 feet in height and with a spacing of thirty-nine feet at the top and fifty feet at the bottom (Farquharson, 1950, p. 19). Each cable consisted of nineteen strands of galvanized wire and totaled a diameter of seventeen inches. The design of the bridge may sound rather large and structurally stable but as mentioned before the bridge was designed to be very sleek looking. By
The Quebex Bridge design was based on a cantilever bridge which was consider by engineers to suitable for the environmental conditions over the St. Lawrence River. On the 29th of August 1907 during the construction phase the bridge collapsed killing 86 workers and many more injured. The purpose of the Quebex Bridge to eliminate the need to catch a ferry from the south shore of the St. Lawrence to the north shore at Quebec City. The Quebex Bridge was first considered in 1852 and again in 1867, 1882, and 1884[1]. With political instability and a member for the liberal party in 1896 commissioned the beginning of the Quebec bridge failure.