Bay Bridge

California has the highest mountains, deepest valleys, best climate, loveliest women, mightiest men, craziest cults and most enthusiastic boosters of any State in the Union. It is therefore fitting that this superlative State should have the world's most extraordinary bridge, opened last week in true Californian style with a bang-up jamboree.

First proposed in 1856, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was not begun until May 1933. To celebrate its opening, California scheduled a three-day fiesta which officially began with speeches at the bridgehead at the Oakland end. Rabbi A. A. Stern offered prayers for the 24 men who lost their lives during construction. Herbert Hoover told how the commission he appointed in 1929 first decided that the bridge was possible. Charles Henderson, an officer of Reconstruction Finance Corp., which financed the bridge with loans of $77,600,000, represented President Roosevelt. Chief Engineer Charles Henry Purcell paid tribute to his staff. A steel-helmeted worker paid tribute to the daily average of 6,500 men employed in the construction. Then, wielding a dirty acetylene torch, California's Governor Frank Finley Merriam severed a gold link in a silver chain across the bridge entrance. Said he profoundly: "This bridge is not the product of a day!"

As the chain fell, 1,500 pigeons sprang into the air. In the harbor, 14 men-of-war boomed a 21-gun salute. Some seals popped up near one of the piers, added their barks to the crowd's cheers. Across the sky droned 250 Navy planes. Beneath them popped a display of daytime fireworks. The dignitaries drove across the bridge to San Francisco, repeated their speeches there. Not until they were carefully out of the way was the public admitted. Then, in the White House, President Roosevelt pressed his little gold key. On flashed green lights at each end of the bridge and a phalanx of cars charged up the ramps. In the first twelve hours, 70,000 cars drove across. Toll: 65-c-. That night the Navy contributed to California's debutante party a searchlight cotillion.

Crossing from the San Francisco side, the motorist ascends a mile-long ramp up Rincon Hill, then over the world's two largest suspension bridges, stretching end-to-end for two miles to Yerba Buena ("Goat") Island. There, the highway dives for 500 ft. through the world's largest bore tunnel, 76 ft. wide, 58 ft. high. Next come the world's third largest cantilever bridge (1,400 ft.), five smaller spans, then a long trestle to the Oakland shore. Total length is eight and one quarter miles. The whole structure is strong enough to resist the mightiest earthquake ever known. If the biggest of battleships hit one of the main piers at full speed, the bridge would only quiver, the ship would be telescoped. The world's greatest and most costly over-water roadway has two decks, no pedestrian walks. The bottom deck for trucks and trains will not be completed until 1938. Top deck has six lanes, will permit 10,000,000 cars to cross annually. Experts predict that tolls will amortize the bridge's cost in 20 years. Drivers may hit 45 m.p.h. on the span. For those who go faster there is a tabloid jail in one of the towers. Before nightfall on the first day it had been well used.

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