 Okay, we're ready everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for being with us here for one of our summer stride nature boost programs. This is a series that we actually started at the very start of the pandemic, knowing that we all needed a little bit of nature and outside time when we had to stay indoors and it's been so wonderful to do this that we're continuing it. Even as things evolve and we can be outside more with each other so thanks everyone for being here with us. My name is Christina and I'm the family engagement coordinator at San Francisco public library and I'll be your host today. Today we're going to spend the next 45 minutes or so learning and exploring this iconic San Francisco landmark and place. Before we start, I want to go ahead and take a moment to acknowledge that we are on the unseated land of the Ramatosh aloney people. This is the ancestral home of the Ramatosh aloney and they continue to live work and play here today. They have not seated lost or forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this place. And we deeply recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. And it is with the deepest respect that we recognize their ongoing stewardship of this land, and also our partnership in respecting and taking care of this land as well. Today's program is part of the many virtual offerings during summer stride. What summer stride you ask, well, our trustee chat monitor is going to put the link in a chat and let you know how you can find out even more. But summer stride is our library's annual summer learning program. This is where we celebrate reading and learning and all its forms for all ages and abilities during the summer. In addition to an incredible array of programs like the one you're watching today, we also have a wonderful reading tracker for you to track your reading and learning. All those audiobooks that you've been listening to as you've been walking outside all the virtual programs you've been tuning into. Those all count towards 20 hours where you get to get a beautiful tote bag with the image that you see here SF heart libraries. We know that you love our libraries and we love you right back San Francisco so find out more information about summer stride. Through the website below. And of course our library programming would not be possible without the friends of the San Francisco public library. They truly fund the majority of our programs and it would not be possible today to have this. And now and all year round without their unwavering support so thank you friends of the San Francisco public library. And if you'd like to become a member of the San Francisco, the friends of the San Francisco public library, our trustee chat monitor will also put that information for you to find out more. So today, what you've been here for we welcome you to the nature boost series. Again, as I said this is a series that we started at the beginning of the pandemic, to be able to offer you meaningful experiences in nature, even when we had to stay indoors, and we found such an incredible partnership with the National Park Service, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the Presidio trust to just grow even in this virtual space. We've been working together for many years on summer stride programming and more. But the ability that we've all been able to pivot to the virtual space and offer virtual programs like this has just been incredible so huge thanks to our partners who make the nature boost program happen last summer and this summer, and also continues to partner with us on programs all year round. We really encourage you to even though you're on the screen with us right now, get outside and explore a park near you today. So transitioning to today, today's presenter is a ranger from the National Park Service, this is James Osborne, he's also known as James O. James O is happy to answer your questions today just put them in the chat and I'll make sure that I get to share them with you with him. So without further ado, I'm delighted to introduce James O. He is an interpretive park ranger at the Fort Point National Historic Site, and the Golden Gate NRA. James O pronouns are he him, and he would like to remind us that we are on Oloni and also if you're up north on Miwok land. James O is a 38 year old career ranger who's worked at John Muir National Historical Site, where he worked as a supervisor in 2018. It's also worked at Fort Point as I've mentioned Alcatraz Island, and also a supervisor in the Presidio since 1994. He's organized park events and is now learning very well I'll say how to get online. He is also SF native and is married and currently lives in Sonoma. And so that's where he is coming in to us from today so without further ado, I present you with James O spanning the Golden Gate. Welcome James O. Thank you Christina and and good morning everyone if it is if you're in the Pacific. Daylight time time zone. I can see that I'm on screen and I'm unmuted so I want to show you before I start talking about the Golden Gate Bridge that I'm actually wearing the Golden Gate Bridge. And this actually is a you might say a symptom of being a park ranger in the Golden Gate area for well the Bay Area for 38 years I wish Christina I could actually say I was 38 years old. I'm a little older than that. But I would say I became a park ranger right out of college at Berkeley back in about 1982. So, yeah, since I am presenting to you from my home in El Verano up in Sonoma County. I'm not in uniform, except that what would this be nine years ago, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. And we did it a little bit more safely than it had been done on the 50th anniversary in 1987. Without letting the bridge just get loaded with so many people that it got flattened out. But I got the t-shirt, you know, it's one of those things where I can say I was there and I got the t-shirt part of team 75. So this is the story of spanning the Golden Gate and you might just say it's one of the stories, because there are as many stories about the Golden Gate as there are people building it, who built it, who maintain it, who visit it today. And in my case, I work underneath it at Fort Point National Historic Site. So actually most of the pictures I'll be showing to you are public domain. I took the one on the right because I just love seeing someone enjoy the bridge in the middle of her run. And a lot of these come from National Archives. I actually researched this whole presentation online, which means you can find all of these stories. And all these pictures online as well. And at the end of my presentation, I've got some ideas for not only text, but also films that you can watch about the building of the Golden Gate Bridge. And next slide please, Lisa. I'm going to start this by asking you some questions. And again, I'm going to be welcoming your questions at the end of the presentation. But first thing I want to do, and this is something I have to do with a lot of folks who come from all over the world to see the Golden Gate. And I have to say the Golden Gate is not a bridge. There, of course, is a bridge across the Golden Gate. In this photo, it's not there yet. So this is a photo by Ansel Adams of the Golden Gate. He was actually out by the cliff house that lands in the farthest west part of San Francisco looking back towards the Golden Gate. There are some ships there. There's some high land on the right, which is actually the Presidio and a national park today. Right behind that in the sort of middle, you're actually looking at Angel Island inside the bay. And then to the left across Raccoon Straits, you're seeing Tiberon. And then the far left Dark Headlands are, of course, Marin County, known as the Marin Headlands. And I think I can see even a lighthouse right there, but that's right where the Golden Gate Bridge North Tower or Marin Tower got built. Where I do currently work on weekends is almost hard to see at the very tip. Like maybe my cursor is circling it. That's Fort Point. And I encourage you to visit not just the Golden Gate Bridge, but Fort Point because as you can see it existed. Well, it was built during the Gold Rush and then the Golden Gate Bridge was built much later, about 80 years later during the Great Depression. So next slide, please. As I tell this story, as I prepared this presentation, I was actually thinking about the ways I've told the story in the past, usually standing on the bridge or near the bridge or underneath the bridge at Fort Point. And it is such an overwhelming structure that there's just a lot of different ways to look at it. And when I talk about its construction, I naturally think of how tough it is, how tough it was to build and even how tough it is to maintain today. Resilience, resilience of ideas, the idea of building a bridge where none could ever be built, none had ever been built before, and even, you know, the longest bridge in the world when it was constructed. As well as the resilience of the, well, I'm going to be talking a little about the promoter, the chief promoter, he's actually called the chief engineer and that would be Joseph Strauss. And today you can still see him standing right next to a bridge, right next to the Golden Gate Bridge in the Toll Plaza, his statue is there, about twice as tall as the man was originally. Even more generally, I think of the Golden Gate Bridge as a beautiful bridge with some, but with a dark side, and that's why I for a while just told the story, sort of as the contrast of terrible beauty, because certainly it's, it was dangerous, it's getting less dangerous all the time. But it's still in an area of extreme weather. So if you visit the Golden Gate Bridge, you want to bring not just one layer, but probably three. You may have to shed them, but it is very cold, and even colder when it gets windy, the wind chill factor sometimes makes it close to freezing. And, and this is, again, a general idea and that is just from seeing what travelers and migrants have seen in the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course, many in the early 20th century, could only travel to the West Coast of the United States by ship, which meant that they sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. For them, a gateway to new opportunities and new freedom. I also remember reading about the soldiers returning from the Pacific War, World War Two, the war with Japan. They were crying from the gunnels, the size of the ship as they returned to their homeland here in California, or wherever they were going to be returning to in the United States. The Golden Gate Bridge really did represent not only victory, but freedom and peace as well. And I decided, next slide Lisa, I decided that all those themes were relevant, but maybe not relevant to you. And what I would like you to do is give me an idea of how you feel about the Golden Gate Bridge. One thing I didn't put here on the text is, have you actually been there? And if you haven't, of course, I'm encouraging you to next time you're in San Francisco or in the north part of San Francisco, visiting our park. But I would love to hear you try to distill it down to a theme for yourself. How would you describe the bridge in a few words? And I think my theme for this program has gotten a little bit more open-ended, so that I'm not telling you why the bridge is important. But when I tell you about the bridge and its problems, the bridge and the dangers involved, the setbacks, I want you to think about what we could do differently. Not only to build the Golden Gate Bridge, but perhaps to reach other goals that might be considered universal. American goals, maybe California goals, maybe your personal goals, but when you have to work with other people, you really have to think about how you're working, not just what you're working for. What could we do differently to reach the same goals? Now it took a long time to get to the point of building the actual Golden Gate Bridge. So let me describe that with the next slide. There were people talking about bridging the Golden Gate Bridge long before the technology even existed, long before any bridges were built in San Francisco. Of course bridges were being built back east and in the Midwest, even before there was a American state of California. And I can't help but put in a little footnote that as California became a state of the Union after Mexico's defeat, and it ceased to be a Mexican state, as it became an American state, of course gold was discovered. So that made it a very, very popular, forward-looking, progress-obsessed state. And it was actually right around the Civil War in the 1860s that a reporter said, we should put a bridge across the Golden Gate. And I realized I jumped forward and back, and I want to explain that name, the Golden Gate. It was named the Golden Gate, the entrance, the water that the narrow mouth of the bay, the water that goes in and out from the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean, changing direction several times a day with the tides. It was named the Golden Gate right back when Americans, American soldiers and adventurers were taking over California from the Mexican government, which was, I should say, rather minimal. And that was John C. Fremont. Some of you might be in Fremont at this very moment, but sometimes called the explorer. He explored lots of parts of Alta, California that even the Mexicans had not explored, and he had a lot of contact with the natives. But he saw that entrance to the bay in 1846 and said, I name it the Golden Gate for the same reason that Constantinople has the name the Golden Horn. Of course, Constantinople was a huge harbor from antiquity, and he was thinking forward a little bit. He was also thinking of his own reputation. But he named it the Golden Gate because he knew it was going to be a big harbor, and then no one could have dreamed that just a couple years later, actual gold would be found in the rivers and mountains of California. And a lot of it would end up mined and coming to San Francisco, going in and out the Golden Gate. As I tell these stories, I do like to point out that there's a context. And that is that when the Golden Gate Bridge was actually being begun at the cost of over 30 million, which back then would seem like the billions to us today. The country was on the ropes. In fact, the whole world was suffering economically. And that means that to get a job building the Golden Gate Bridge could almost be seen as a ticket to, you know, happiness for bridge workers. I'm not going to try to tell all of the stories of everyone who got hired and everyone who didn't get hired. But I do want you to remember the stories of the Great Depression and maybe even think of the Golden Gate Bridge as the Bay areas in Northern California's mini response to the Great Depression. There was some federal dollars that went into building parts of the bridge, in fact, more of the roads to the north and south. But it was kind of an amazing public and even more private partnership with the voters of San Francisco and counties to the north. They agreed to go into debt to the Bank of America, which essentially lent the money. Back when it was a small bank run by one man, A.P. Giannini, and he said he would lend the money as bonds so that the bridge could be built. Now he had been convinced by this man, Joseph Strauss, who, as I mentioned, was the chief engineer who spent the better part of a decade from about 1921 when he was approached by a San Francisco engineer and came from the east to look at the Golden Gate, to plan and to design and to sell the Golden Gate Bridge. And he needed a lot of help. He did a lot of convincing, but for one thing, he had built draw bridges. Most of his impressive bridges in places like Chicago and New York and other big cities in the east were draw bridges, which are impressive because they can open, but they tend not to be very long. Some of you may have heard of the Brooklyn Bridge, another designer and another technology, a suspension bridge. And it became clear in the 20s that to span a narrow but deep arm of the sea, like the Golden Gate, required a large span, longer than can be done with like metal beams or metal boxes. So Strauss did a design. And if you look at it on the next slide, you might be surprised what Joseph Strauss designed. He actually failed to sell this design. This is Joseph Strauss initial design, which is called a cantilever suspension bridge. And not to be judgmental, but to me this is about the ugliest bridge I've ever seen in my life. Maybe that's because I grew up next to the real Golden Gate Bridge. But as you can see, he put the towers closer together and he extended these sort of rat trap cages, that's called the cantilever part. He extended those from the towers to the land and then a good distance towards each other. And then a fairly short cable is hanging from tower to tower structure to tower structure. It may have been possible. He may have done it if anyone had liked the way that looked. But that was roundly rejected and that was way before ABG and then he stepped up and decided to fund the bridge. And a lot of engineers, a lot of politicians in San Francisco, and even the general public when they saw this in the newspapers were like, uh, uh, uh, we don't really think that can be done or should be done. This is around the time the mid twenties when Joseph Strauss hired a big team. He already had a team, but he hired a crucial, uh, uh, engineer, uh, bridge engineer named Charles Alton Ellis. And he's pictured on the next slide. So I do want you to really see the man who designed the Golden Gate Bridge. He's on the left and Charles Alton Ellis was a engineering professor. Um, I think he was at University of Chicago or Chicago University first later he was at Purdue. He had designed quite a few suspension bridges and most importantly, he knew how the physics and stresses of a suspension bridge worked. And he could do the massive calculations to, um, calculate the, given the length of the span from shore to shore or from tower to tower, how thick the cables that supported the bridge would have to be, how long they'd have to be, how they'd be anchored, how the wide the roadway would be, given that there would be high winds and how tall the towers would be. So this was the man who actually designed the Golden Gate Bridge, an entirely suspension bridge and should be given credit. There should probably be a statue of him standing next to the statue of Joseph Strauss. But what happened is that even as his plan was being accepted, he was worried that he hadn't done the calculations completely or that he hadn't planned for all possibilities. And so Ellis never felt he was, his work was done. Strauss said, you're done. Take a break. And while he was on a two week leave of absence, Strauss informed him that he was no longer employed. So in essence, Ellis was fired by the chief engineer because he did his job too well. It was his design that was embraced by the community, the community of investors as well as voters. I'm showing Horace King to the right here because I don't want you to think for a moment that because Strauss and Ellis and the banker, APG and any and another banker to the north up in Santa Rosa here in the 20s, promoting the bridge, a guy named Frank Doyle who ended up having Doyle Drive named after him in the Presidio, one of the southern approaches of the bridge, that just because you're a white man, you can build a bridge. Horace King was one of the first bridge builders in the United States. He was a slave. Horace King was born a slave in the 1840s and 50s. He belonged to an engineer in the south, a white man who saw his cleverness, his potential, his desire to learn and took him on site as bridges were built and pretty soon he understood how to build bridges. And after the Civil War as a free man, he built his own bridges, the one that he built in Cincinnati. I believe has now fallen down, but or has been replaced by a bigger bridge with much more capacity, but I want you to look him up because I had no idea he existed until I Googled black bridge builders and Horace King was known as the king of bridge bridge builders in the American south of right around the time of the war between the states and the emancipation proclamation. So the next slide gets us to the monumental beginning of the project. Construction did begin after all the bonds were sold. The men were hired. And when I say men, I mean a number of unions involved because there were at least a half dozen companies that all contracted to build the bridge. You had people building roads, you had people manufacturing cable wire that would go into the cable. You had Bethlehem Steel as the biggest supplier of steel. And their subcontractor McClintock, which was in charge of the overall construct construction. And this was a construction project which did not hire anyone did not even consider hiring workers of color. There were very few African Americans who were working on this bridge at the time. And part of the reason that they were could be exploit excluded is because the union required, you know, experienced steel workers and experienced rivet riveters, and very difficult to get that experience if you don't, if you aren't allowed to work in that trade. Here, the work has been going on for a little less than a year. And I want you to take a close look and see that over in Marin, the Marin Tower is almost finished. And you can actually see what are called traveler Derek's, which are these big screens and levers that have actually worked their way up. And those the narrow arms that you can see at the top, they have actually been used to build the tower lifting section by section up to the to the top of the existing. And they started with a very flat, very carefully flattened concrete platform there at what we call lime point fact they worked right next to the old lime point lighthouse. Now it's a very different story on the San Francisco side, partly because the span. No one had built a span from water to water, but you also notice on the south side, excuse me from land to land that long. That's about a mile and a quarter. 5,280 plus another thousand. So anyway, it's about a 6000 foot wide straight and Fort Point is sitting right there. Just not possible to build the tower there and span that distance. So what you see is a trestle. And that was the first thing built beside some dirt roads through the procedure access roads. This trestle was 1000 feet long and it went to actually a slightly less deep part of the straight between that trestle and the Marin pier. It gets to over 300 feet deep. But they found a shoulder here of about 150. I should have my notes in front of me, but they actually were going to put build their own island and put the south tower there. So that trestle was built. It was destroyed by one of their own ships and then high, a high storm. Damaged it again. And this gives you an idea how most of 1933 and most of 1934 were involved with getting ready to build the second tower and building the first tower on the north. And you can see that Fort Point is being saved. It could have been destroyed because the army didn't need it anymore. It was pretty much obsolete since about 1900. All the cannons have been removed, but it still had a lighthouse with a very short life now that this enormous pylon was being built in front of it. But more importantly, it's important to know that on the slope of the Presidio behind Fort Point was going to be where the cables were anchored on the south side. Over on the north side behind that Marin tower in the shoulder, in fact, actually behind that shoulder of the Marin headlands is where a huge concrete and stone anchorage was built for the north end. Next slide, please. And this is the main material that actually spans the bridge. I told you a little bit about how the towers were built. And I just want you to picture a bridge held up by wire. How can that be done? Well, there's a company called Robling still makes wire for cables. And it existed in the east, not in Steeleton where Bethlehem was, but up, I want to say closer to Ohio. Robling cable company. Oh, wow, I was actually supposed to do a presentation for the Robling Museum later this summer, but we've lost contact. So anyway, my point is that it takes a wire about the size of a lead pencil. And a wire that is continuously thousands of times crosses the straight and hung from the towers to make a cable, two of which can hold up the Golden Gate Bridge. Today, you can actually see a cross section of the cable. And that is right in the Golden Gate Bridge toll plaza right next to the Golden Gate Welcome Center. And it tells you the main span 4200 feet, 4,200 feet. I believe no bridge had been longer than 4,000 before this. And you can see every one of the 2,752. No, 2,000. It's a palindrome 2,700. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, 2,772. Anyway, a lot of wires, they could go they could have wrapped around the entire earth several times. On the left, you see the man who deal with those wires as they keep being unrolled across the Golden Gate from looks to me like the photographer was standing at the North Tower, excuse me, the San Francisco Tower, looking in the distance at the Marin Tower. And those men are standing a few feet from drops of about 700 feet. But they're busy taking small bunches of wire and wrapping them up into one big cable that happened in 1935. And in 1936, those cables were finished. You'll notice they're wearing hard hats and I do want to mention safety. Next slide please. This was a bridge built at a time when bridges were dangerous. In fact, this is when the United States and cities in Europe were building skyscrapers and pretty much figured a man would die for every million dollars spent. You may recall I mentioned the budget. It actually ended up being $35 million, but nowhere near 35 men died. And in fact, well, there were accidents here and there, some broken bones, and some men falling. There were no deaths until the very last year. So for most of four years, there were no deaths and everyone looked in amazement at this. There were hats, cables and clips that tie you to your work when you're working on the side of a tower. And when it came time, what you're seeing there are not just the cables crossing the span, but very wide catwalks. The men actually had a lot of space to work on as they spun the cables over their heads. And this all kept it remarkably safe until the very last few months of construction. I'm going to show you anything else on this photograph. No, just just just see that the bridge has been spanned. But there is no way to cross, except by foot at this point, hanging from those cables are what are called suspender ropes. They are themselves cables, but they're only about three inches wide. Next slide, please. And you can see the roadway, which because it's heavy and because it's hanging has to be built out. It's hanging from the cables but built out from each tower. What we're seeing in this wonderful left hand photograph is the San Francisco Tower, which recall is sitting out on an island, and the roadway being built and hung from those wonderfully reflecting metal suspender ropes on either side. So it's a balancing act. You can also see that this photograph was taken from right next to Fort Point because that's the four story tall brick and stone building in the left corner of that frame. Now, how was this done without a single casualty until February of 1937. Well, there was a massive net built, and you can sort of see it jutting out on the left side of the roadway near that crane on the left picture but a close up shows how big that net is and there's four or five guys in the net making sure that it's it's got no holes and testing it. And you also see that these men were perfectly fearless. You kind of had to be very, very courageous or just put it out of your mind what was below you. And that guy who was balancing on the beam shows a certain amount of courage that I know I lack but of course if he fell, he would fall into that net. So, it all worked. It all really worked. And, you know, with Ellis's calculations and Strauss's leadership, the roadway was completed. And there was a little ceremony in the very center in November of 1936. And then the work on actually building a paved road began, you know, because that was just a metal frame, I shouldn't say just that's, of course, the crucial roadway of the bridge. Next slide please. And you will see another beauty shot, which I think because it half drowns the bridge in fog reminds me of not just beauty but of the dark side of the Golden Gate Bridge, which really there had been once small casualty in I believe, 37. A man just got between a beam swinging towards him and the superstructure behind him and he got crushed to death. And they suddenly knew that the perfect run of safety was no longer perfect. And a month later, in 1937, the roadway was completed. But what there was underneath the roadway were moving scaffolds that had been used to put in wood forms, because wood forms are needed to pour concrete onto. And once the concrete dries and is supported, it supports itself and of course, a network of metal members, all the wood had to be removed. And that scaffold had been installed. It's rolled rolled along the bottom rails, and it had been installed imperfectly and therefore a whole scaffold with about 20 men on it, ripped away. And it's interesting because there were some safety inspectors, some of Strauss' assistant engineers were literally walking towards that part of the bridge on February 17, because there had been some reports that it was making weird noises. And they heard a terrible screeching sound as the the the clamps and wheels gave out the scaffold fell through the net because it was so heavy and took more than 20 men down with it. A few were able to escape the not only the net and the scaffold but the impact of just falling the whole distance themselves and survived with injuries but 10 were killed and partially were drowned in that net. In the in the single biggest tragedy and it ended up being one one first and then these 10, a total of 11 men killed and as tragic as it is, it has to be acknowledged that that was the safest bridge of any size built up to that time. Some of you may know that this Oakland San Francisco Bay Bridge much longer but without a really long span like the Golden Gate was being built at the same time, and two dozen men, at least, I don't have the complete figures but died building that so it wasn't as safe a bridge. It's beautiful today, and it was just a a mind boggling amazing thing to the residents. The journalists taking pictures. Next slide please. And the world when they saw it open on pedestrian day, which was February, February 27. Wait, I'm sorry. I just was going to write this down. May 27. Yes, we should all know May 27 because that's when we had the 50th and the 75th anniversaries. But May 27 was the day for pedestrians to walk across the bridge and with the population what it was that was no problem people roller skated, people rode bikes, people walked, they took their pictures. There were no huge crowds. That all changed 50 years later. But the next day, the bridge became mainly a means for people to drive from north to south, and the longest bridge in the world up until the 60s when a longer bridge in in New York, Verrazano Narrows was built. Verrazano Narrows only surpassed the bridge in length, never in fame. And as these photos show you, it's beautiful from beautiful from all angles. And while it may not be the longest is by far the most famous bridge in the world. And when you think about its construction and its maintenance next slide, next slide please. I want you to think about something that's been around for 75 years, but is not natural. It's not going to grow back. Will it be here 75 years from now. And what will it take to keep it. Do I take it for granted. Definitely not. I need it every day to get into San Francisco. We're living in a North Bay. And I actually prefer to ride my bicycle across it on one of the sidewalks, because on weekends, it's, it's quite a bike thoroughfare and I don't have a bus to take on weekends. But I want you to think about not only the natural systems, which we as humans have stressed now to their max to the point of wondering about whether we can actually halt climate change. But what we do, and what we did to build the Golden Gate Bridge what we're going to do now with climate change, perhaps with building back better or a green new deal or really putting the nail on the coffin of the pandemic. Think about planning, think about the hardship, think about monetary and human cost. What could we do differently. Be seeing your responses in a few minutes. But I want to leave you with some of the people who work the bridge today. Next slide please. This is actually a wonderful exhibit done for the 75th anniversary of the bridge back in 2012. And this is a exhibit that we show permanently in Fort Point on the second floor. I encourage you to visit Fort Point for a number of reasons. It's called Gatekeepers, and it shows you some of the people who were working on the bridge in 2012. Mr Gibson on the left is a painter. And as you can see he has no fear of heights. Painting the bridge is actually the primary means of preserving it. If there's no paint, the metal rusts and eventually gives out. There have been some major reinforcements done in the 60s. The roadway had to be reinforced because of the possibility of high winds. And more recently there was a seismic retrofit after the 1989 earthquake. That was mainly of the concrete areas. And Brianna Taylor on the right has retired and her job is gone. So I do admit over the years to have almost made friends with a few of those toll takers and now it's automated toll taking. So you won't see Brianna again. But it is a very diverse staff that maintains the bridge. And certainly part of that is response to the fact that a diverse electorate actually elects the supervisors of their cities and the supervisors, I believe are the ones who choose the board of directors. And it's clear that the bridge should reflect its users. And there is work that will never be replaced by a by a computer or a machine. With that I just want to briefly show you some things you can do on in your research on the bridge. You can have not only Andy Freeberg, the photographer has a wonderful website to show you the people who work around the bridge. And you can you can look him up. There are some great photos not only of the bridge being built, but of the area of the bridge, even before it was built available on YouTube, or the Internet archive. And what I read are these titles, and I've gone through a few books. The most recent book that our state historian Kevin star, maybe recently retired wrote called Golden Gate the life and times of America's Greatest Bridge. Very good book. Sometimes I like to be a little less text oriented a little bit less detail oriented next slide please. And these are a couple of the books that I've read in the last year that I've really enjoyed. Dave Eggers wrote a book for all ages about that color, which I noticed some of you have been asking about the book is called this bridge will not be gray. And it tells the story of many alternative colors that may have been chosen, but why international orange was chosen, mainly for aesthetic reasons, because it was definitely a little bit more expensive than black or gray primer. I do also urge you to look at Carolyn Finney's black faces white spaces, just to see how public lands have sometimes, perhaps, purposefully, and perhaps unconsciously been excluding have excluded people of color. And with that I want to thank you all and I'm going to take a look at some of your questions here. One of these. Oh, thank you very much. I noticed that there was the question about international orange, but I'm glad to see you thinking about who not only builds and who maintains but who actually designs. And again, because they don't necessarily get headlines outside of their hometowns or where they work. I want you to look up black and women and designers of color because you can find some amazing bridges, buildings, airports, and even amazing national and international programs built by people of all colors and genders. Thank you. So, thank you, Lily. Thank you. Thank you for just the ways that you're not only sharing the history but also creating a you're giving us a lot of homework, you know, thinking about goals and how could we do things differently. I love this this is actually more of a workshop I would say than a presentation where you're putting us a task which is fantastic. And so, you know, we've been getting a lot of really lovely support in the chat. I think this is a cool stream, a wonderful presentation so thank you everyone who's been listening this whole time. I do invite our audience members to ask another question a direct question to James Oh, we've, we've got the, the lucky opportunity to be here with an expert. So please go ahead and add any questions you might have. And thank you James Oh for speaking to the color and for recommending some books, you know here at the library we're always looking for book recommendations. While people are putting potentially another question in there. You know one person did talk about, you know, in response to your question, what could be done differently. Someone did speak about more inclusive hiring and I was just wondering if you could speak to that. Yes, one thing I do know is that unions, those trades that do have unions all have policies now that that forbid discrimination, you know on the basis of color or gender, and that doesn't mean that discrimination has ended but it actually means that there's no, you know, legal framework for discriminating. In fact there's a legal framework for being inclusive. And, you know, I have noticed with the, you know, not just the bridge workers but the bridge patrol there are women there meant actually there's a an Asian friend of mine who was a park ranger who decided to be to join the bridge patrol. And it was actually harder than being a park ranger so he only did that temporarily. But I do want to encourage you all to follow your dreams and to really think about how you can contribute, not only to your own, you know family your own well being but to your community. And that might be with building a home or a bridge. Thank you so much for that. A couple questions coming in I think about sort of the structure and the structural integrity of the bridge and also as I'm sure you know about this the ringing sound that we've been hearing. Yes, is that I've ridden my bike. No actually what's happening is the the railings and starting on the west side on the ocean side. The railings are being replaced because, well they look pretty good still and they're painted, because they don't actually hold up the bridge, they have been less a priority over the years for repainting. So they've gotten heavily corroded and what the bridge district did was redesign them to use less metal so the verticals I mean literally these are right next to your legs as you walk along the bridge sidewalks. The verticals are were they were little I beans so they presented to the wind flat surfaces, you know, front and back, but what they replaced them with were cheaper. What actually look like instead of looking like this to the wind they look like this their veins they're just single. They're like eyes without fancy tops and bottoms. So they the wind is whistling between them and it's just like a whistle like the like the reed of of your of a clarinet or something, and the wind is resonating only when it's very high. So I've actually, I had to, they closed that sidewalk of just a couple months ago and I had to cross the bridge on my bike on the east sidewalk sharing it was a few pedestrians who were out in that high wind. But I as I passed I could hear, I mean you can hear it all over the Bay area really, but it's very loud when you're on the bridge and they're trying there they've got a wind tunnel up in Canada and some engineers that are experimenting with ways to dampen that sound. Interesting. Thank you so much. Yeah, now I live on the west side of the city and I definitely hear it I thought there was an alien invasion or something happening. So Diana moon asks us, although probably an unrealistic scenario, could the bridge withstand a tsunami. Oh, absolutely. In fact, a tsunami is not going to be higher than even Fort Point I mean the highest tsunamis in in in all of history have been about two, two stories high. Fort Point is three is four actually and you might consider the the platform it stands on another so it would definitely drown Fort Point temporarily. We do have tsunami warnings along the shoreline. And we have, you know, public address systems and and a lot of early sensing, you know, from what those would be caused most likely by oceanic earthquakes. But I wouldn't worry about the bridge, because that water will just sweep right by the bottoms of the towers and everyone above will be watching in horror as it, you know, probably would engulf some of the shorelines of San Francisco and maybe even Berkeley But they also know that as it goes through the Golden Gate, it gets taller and then it very quickly because because of like a bottleneck effect and then it would very quickly dissipate towards Alcatraz and the East Bay. I find your confidence very reassuring and I'm sure our audience says to what we're nearing the end of our time and so if I might ask the last question. Just thinking back on your 38 year career. What have you loved most about your work. Well, I have to say it's, it's, it's programs like this, I really, I love the redwoods I love the bay I love the old fort. What really makes me happy is to be able to share that and see to see just how much people love the parks and and the bridge bridges. We could go on about the new bridge over by Oakland, but that's another story. We'll have to have another program for that. Well, aren't we lucky that this is something that you adore and enjoy. Thank you so much. Do you have any words of farewell for our own community here. Well, I actually I wanted to thank my predecessors on this program, other Rangers who I've worked with for many years and that would be Ranger Fatima Colindrez, as well as MJ Mario say Alcantara Alcantara. I also want to mention mentioned how much I learned from my colleague who was descended from the aloney. She's moved back to be a Ranger in Southern California, but she grew up as descended from the Monterey area. Rumsian or lonely Indians because really, that is a traditional ecological knowledge passed down verbally, and it's priceless. Thank you so much. I feel like there was such a through line of giving credit where credit is due in your presentation. So I think that was an excellent period just to our presentation today but we look forward to doing more with you James. Oh, and thank you everyone for being with us. I think we've had a really riveted audience, the numbers of attendance and have stayed through so they are sticking here with us. People want to hear and learn about this. So thank you again for coming. Thank you for being here James. Oh, and if you love today. I hope that you'll join us for our next nature boost, which is a two for along it's a blend with our BIPOC kid lit series that we're having. It's this Tuesday, I believe. Sorry, Wednesday, July 14. It will be with Ambreen Tariq and as you mentioned Fatima Colindres. Ambreen is the founder and author of, she's the founder of Brown People Camping, and the author of a beautiful picture book called Fatima's Great Outdoors and coincidence that it has Fatima's name it's not about Fatima Colindres, but Fatima Colindres will be there so we hope that you can join us all there that will be at one o'clock on Wednesday, July 14. And that's all everyone take care. Enjoy your parks. We look forward to seeing you either online or at our library locations very soon.