The Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge: San Francisco’s bridges, the back story

About The Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge: San Francisco’s bridges, the back story

By the ULTIMATE San Francisco Editorial Team

In the depths of the Great Depression, San Francisco built two of the world’s great bridges at once. The Bay Bridge opened on 12 November 1936; the Golden Gate followed six months later, in May 1937.

The Bay Bridge

The first to open was the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, on 12 November 1936, about six months before the Golden Gate. Its chief engineer, Charles H. Purcell, carried it across the bay in two parts: on the San Francisco side, two suspension spans joined at a central anchorage; then a tunnel through Yerba Buena Island; then, on the Oakland side, a long steel eastern span.

In the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 a 50-foot (15 m) section of the eastern span’s upper deck fell onto the deck below, and the bridge was closed for just over a month. The answer was a whole new eastern span, which opened on 2 September 2013: a self-anchored suspension bridge hung from a single white tower 525 feet (160 m) high.

Irving Morrow chose International Orange because it suits the hills and the sea and stands out in the fog.

The Bay Lights

In 2013 the artist Leo Villareal strung the western span with 25,000 LEDs, The Bay Lights, which played slow patterns of light across the bridge every night. The original lights were switched off in 2023; rebuilt with new LEDs, they returned in March 2026.

The Golden Gate

Work on the Golden Gate Bridge began on 5 January 1933. The project was led by the chief engineer Joseph Strauss, but much of the design was the work of others: Leon Moisseiff conceived the final suspension design and Charles Alton Ellis did much of the technical work, while the architect Irving Morrow gave the bridge its Art Deco towers, its lighting and its colour, International Orange.

On 27 May 1937 the bridge opened to people on foot, and the next day to cars. Its main span of 4,200 feet (1,280 m) was the longest of any suspension bridge in the world until 1964, and its towers rise 746 feet (227 m) above the water. Eleven men died building it; a safety net slung beneath the deck saved 19 others, who became known as the Halfway to Hell Club.

Seeing the bridges

Walk or cycle across the Golden Gate from the Welcome Center at the San Francisco end, open daily from 9am to 6pm, and look back at the city from Battery Spencer on the Marin side. For the Bay Bridge, walk the Embarcadero to the Ferry Building after dark, when the lights play across the western span.

Our advice: go early, before the fog rolls in or the wind picks up, and bring a warm layer: it is always cooler on the bridge than in town.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with The Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge: San Francisco’s bridges, the back story before you go.