Top of the Bridge, Ma…

A San Francisco Boy’s Dream Come True

Lew came into the office one day (this was 26 years ago) and said he and Krystal had been to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. What?

It turns out that Krystal did photo framing work for Bob David, the official bridge photographer and staff architect, and he had taken them up. And it had been fantastic. I beg. Please, if there’s ever a chance . . . I love the bridge and would do anything to get up there.

A few months later Krystal called on a Wednesday (in September): “It looks like we’re set for 6 tomorrow night . . . we’ll meet in the parking lot by the toll booths.”

I meet Krystal and Bob at 6 PM. It’s a warm, balmy fall night. We check in at the headquarters, get hard hats, and then hop into one of the little Cushman bridge scooters and drive out to the south tower.

There’s a brass plaque mounted on the tower, with the names of the bridge builders, mayor, etc, dated in the ’30s. Bob opens a hatch-like door and we step inside the tower.The three of us jam into a tiny antique-looking elevator (the bridge was built in the mid–’30s) — not a place for the claustrophobic — and start the ascent. I am excited out of my mind, it’s a dream come true.

The elevator (below) has steel mesh sides, so you see the interior structure of the towers as you ascend.

Bob in background, inside elevator.,Krystal about to get in. It’s a tight fit for three people.

I was born in San Francisco, and the bridge has always been part of my life. I’ve been crossing it weekly or more in the last 55 years I’ve lived in Marin county, and it looks refreshingly beautiful each time I see it. There’s also a sort of family connection: my Dad walked out to the south tower in the ’30s when it was being built, on a wooden catwalk, before the road bed was installed. The story was in one of columnist Herb Caen’s columns in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Every time I drive across it, I admire the design. I love the fluting on the towers, the way it’s all designed to reflect light and create shadows, and the color. Often when I come into the city, I cut through the Presidio and go down to Fort Baker, under the bridge, check the surf, and look up at the bridge. I’m a fan!

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Finally we get to the end of the line, the lower surface of the top beam. Here we disembark and there’s a steel ladder with round and worn rungs about 20 feet long going up to the top, where there’s a hatch cover. Bob tells me I can go first.

I climb through the hatch cover, and step into the warm night, the sun getting ready to set, and I’m 700’ above the water, it has to be one of the greatest thrills in my life. I’m surprised to feel perfectly safe; there’s a railing. I’m not crazy about heights, but this feels OK. It’s a unique vantage point.

Above. looking south. The Presidio (white buildings) above the toll gates on the left, Pacific Heights in background; the ocean, Baker Beach on the right.

Toll gates at bottom left, buildings on the Presidio

Above: Marin County to the north, Horseshoe Bay yacht harbor, Robin Williams Tunnel left of bridge tower, Belvedere island top right

You can watch the cars going north and south, and see boats sailing or motoring and occasionally crossing under the bridge with white wakes.

You look around at the construction, the heavy steel plates, the bolts, it’s amazing how good it looks after 65 years.

Inching out here did get my heart pounding...

When I say something about Krystal’s hard hat, she starts singing,
”Y-M-C-A . . . “

It’s a nice night, a comfortable temperature. The three of us stay up there about an hour, talking, admiring the view. It’s pleasant, we’re just hangin’. Bob loves the structure and he likes seeing people appreciate the magnificence of it all. The sun starts to set and orange light filters through the air. The bridge turns a deeper shade of orange. It’s one of those moments that’s etched in my memory forever.

We go back down the elevator. In the parking lot Bob shows us the snack bar, which he designed. It’s a beautiful little building, in harmony with the bridge and the Round House, and the lettering is the same art deco style as on the brass plaque at the tower.

I say to Bob, “You’ve changed my life.”

And it has, because now every time I see the bridge, from above (as you often do from an airplane leaving SFO), or driving across, or from below, or from the hills, I’ll always remember what it’s like on top.

A few months later I paddled a kayak from Bolinas into San Francisco and went under the bridge.

* * * *

Note: if you’re interested in the bridge, see John Van der Zee’s book, The Gate, which describes, among other things, how the real designer of the bridge was not Joseph Strauss, as is commonly attributed, but an artistic (and unheralded) engineer named Charles Ellis.

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(These were the first shots I took with a digital camera, a little Fuji Finepix 4700.)

Addendum: The Golden Gate Before the Bridge

My Dad bought this print for $1 from the photographer (name unknown) during the depression, about 1930. it’s printed on textured paper, hence the pattern.

It shows the Golden Gate before the bridge. Note Fort Point on the left.