AMERICAN BRIDGE

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20509, 27 May 1938, Page 8

AMERICAN BRIDGE

ENGINEERING MARVEL CARNIVAL OPENING TO-DAY SAN FRANCISCO CELEBRATIONS A marvel of engineering achievement and a major development in transport development in America, the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco, California, will be officially opened in a pageant of historical importance which will be marked by a fiesta on a grand scale, starting to-day. The Golden Gate Bridge fiesta will be held from to-day until June 2, and after the celebrations to-morrow the longest suspension span in the world will be open for vehicles and pedestrians. This splendid engineering accomplishment will Join the counties of San Francisco and Marin, and enable people to travel rapidly from the metropolis into Northern California and out into the wider spaces, without having to use the familiar ferry boats. The United States fleet is to participate in the opening. To-morrow the war vessels will pass under Golden Gate Bridge, preceded by the 266 landgeared aeroplanes from the carriers Saratoga. Lexington and Ranger. Continuing on, the airmen of the fleet will flock in a great massed sky parade over San Francisco. Pageant of History Picturesque language is used by the officials in charge of the celebration: “We will, they state, “have cavalcades that will, figuratively, step out of the pages of history with colour, pomp and circumstance. The Dons of old will be richly dressed and the cowled padres will give a sombre effect. There will be a rolling pageant of the State’s history. Four main night parades, fireworks, banquets, balls, sporting events, racing on water and on land, games, polo, swimming, shows and parades day and night, will provide entertainment for the hundreds of thousands of people who will attend the fiesta. “The greatest unit of horsemen ever seen In the west will delight onlookers. Three of the great night pageants will be set on a stage that will have as a backdrop the towering spires of the Golden Gate Bridge, with skv-reaching redwood trees as the proscenium arch—three thousand actors on the great stage of the fiesta, a weejv-long living dream whose colours had been stolen from history.” 100,000 Bouvenlr Tickets Altogether i 00,000 tickets have been printed for the pedestrians who will have the bridge to themselves to-day. Each ticket is one foot by three feet, and contains a colourful picture of the Golden Gate and the bridge, with descriptive material. The tickets will be sold at a nominal price. The bridge cost £7,000,000. It is 4200 feet in length, its single span being 400 feet longer than the Brooklyn Bridge, and 700 feet longer than the bridge across the Hudson River in New York. Its tow’ers rise 746 feet above the water and will serve as aerial beacons. The roadway is 60 feet wide and on each side are pedestrian avenues. The toll for each motor-car with a driver and up to four passengers will be 50 cents one way, with a charge of 5 cents for each additional passenger. Heavier vehicles like trucka will pay slightly higher rates. Soon the Golden Gate Bridge, like the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge of more than eight miles, will be accepted as a matter of course. Each is a marvel of engineering construction.