Wednesday, September 30, 2009

San Francisco, 2009

Golden Gate Bridge Facts - The Golden Gate Bridge's paint color is orange vermillion, also called international orange. Architect Irving Morrow selected the color because it blends with the bridge's setting
The bridge was fully painted when it was first built and then touched up for the next 27 years. In 1965, the original paint was removed because of corrosion and replaced with a inorganic zinc silicate primer and an acrylic emulsion top coat, a project that took 30 years. Today, painters touch up the paint continuously.
38 painters work on the bridge, along with 17 ironworkers who replace corroding steel and rivets.

One of the most interesting Golden Gate Bridge facts is that only eleven workers died during construction, a new safety record for the time. In the 1930s, bridge builders expected 1 fatality per $1 million in construction costs, and builders expected 35 people to die while building the Golden Gate Bridge. One of the bridge's safety innovations was a net suspended under the floor. This net saved the lives of 19 men during construction, and they are often called the members of the "Half Way to Hell Club."
Total length: Including approaches, 1.7 miles (8,981 feet or 2,737 m).
Middle span: 4,200 feet (1,966 m).
Width: 90 feet (27 m).
Clearance above the high water (average): 220 feet (67 m).
Total weight when built: 894,500 tons (811,500,000 kg).
Total weight today: 887,000 tons (804,700,000 kg). Weight reduced because of new decking material.
Towers: 746 feet (227 m) above the water. 500 feet (152 m) above the roadway. Each leg is 33 x 54 feet (10 x 16 m). Towers weigh 44,000 tons each (40,200,000 kg). There are about 600,000 rivets in EACH tower.

Lombard Street
Lombard Street is one of San Francisco’s most enjoyable attractions. Lovingly referred to as "The Crookedest Street in the World," it's actually crooked for a very good reason. It’s unbelievably steep! If not for the serpentine curves taming this treacherous slope, people would likely be killed rolling down. This stretch between Hyde St. and Leavenworth St. was built in the mid-1920s to accommodate the steepness of the slope.
Lombard Street is "The Crookedest Street", because of its eight sharp turns on a 40-degree slope. But it continues in both directions, going all the way east, up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, and continuing west down through the Marina, where it becomes the major conduit to the Golden Gate Bridge. A walk in either direction makes for a pleasant hike.
Some of the classiest and most expensive Real Estate in the city exists on Lombard Street. This Russian Hill neighborhood, somehow possesses stately mansions, condos and townhouses, even with the endless array of tourists pouring down the street every day. In the spring and through the entire summer, Lombard Street is alive with color, as the chrysanthemums, and other well tended flowers are in full bloom.

San Francisco Skyline

San Francisco has 215 historic landmark buildings, ten historical districts and 14,000 Victorian homes. From Alamo Square, the city skyline is a modern contrast to Victorian "postcard row."

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