Goldengate Bridge

Location : San Francisco, California  and Marin County, California.

Designer : Joseph Strauss, Irving Morrow, and Charles Ellis.

Total length  : 2.7 km.

Width     : 27.4 m.

Height    : 227.4 m.

Opened  : May 27, 1937.

Daily traffic : 118,000.

Coordinates : 37°49′11″N 122°28′43″W.

The Golden Gate Bridge has been completed after more than four years of construction at a cost of $35 million and opened to vehicular traffic on May 28, 1937 at twelve o'clock noon when President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House announcing the event. The GGB opening was ahead of schedule and under budget.
Joseph Baerman Strauss  had a dream of building a bridge across the Golden Gate. Cincinnati born and trained with Chicago engineering experience, Strauss built his reputation for bridge building in San Francisco with his Bascule Bridge Co. which was responsible for two historic SF drawbridges still in operation near the AT&T ballpark: the Fourth Street bridge and the "Lefty" O'Doul bridge on Third Street.Though Strauss only lived a year beyond completion of construction of the GGB he disproved the conventional wisdomof the time; "No one can bridge the Golden Gate because of insurmountable difficulties which are apparent to all who give thought to the idea." Swift currents, deep water and strong winds were the most obvious of the 'insurmountable difficulties' Strauss had to deal with.
The cable contractor for the Golden Gate Bridge was John A. Roebling's Sons Co. Trenton & Robeling, New Jersey.
The Brooklyn Bridge in New York, completed 54 years earlier in 1883 and designed by wire rope patent holder John A. Roebling, was the first famous suspension bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge helped to define and add fame to New York City in much the same way that the Golden Gate Bridge has for San Francisco.