Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge
May 27, 1937 was Pedestrian Day in San Francisco. This kicked off a week-long
celebration of the new Golden Gate Bridge. Pedestrian Day meant that the bridge was
open to foot traffic for 25 cents per person. About 200,000 people paid the fee and
crossed the 1.7-mile span in their walking shoes or on roller skates. For the first time, it
was possible to walk across the San Francisco Bay, from the northern tip of San
Francisco to the southern end of Marin County. Automobile traffic was permitted the
next day at noon.
Before the Golden Gate Bridge was constructed, San Francisco was a relatively isolated
city. It sat at the top of a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water that was difficult
to cross. The Golden Gate itself is a narrow strip of water at the mouth of the San
Francisco Bay. With strong currents and a depth of 400 feet, the Golden Gate strait is
foreboding to sailors. On the other hand, circumnavigating the whole San Francisco Bay
has its drawbacks too: the trip is hundreds of miles long and involves crossing several
rivers, which can become shallow sand traps.
For these reasons, ferry service between San Francisco and Marin County began in 1820.
First the ferry was only for railroad passengers, but later on people could bring their
automobiles in tow. This became booming business.
When bridge proposals became serious, the ferry companies, including the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company, opposed any bridge as competition. The military also
objected to spanning the San Francisco Bay; they questioned whether the bridge would
interfere with war ships. People in general wondered about the sturdiness of a suspension
bridge, which is held by cables and strung between towers. Could such a bridge withstand
the Bays strong gusts of wind? How would the bridge remain rooted in the ocean floor?
Nonetheless, by the 1900s it was evident that ferries alone could not handle travel
demands. The citys growth would be restricted until it overcame obstacles to trading
with Northern California. In 1916 the Chicago-based engineer Joseph Strauss responded
to San Franciscos call for bridge submissions. Immediate local support mixed with
alleged bribery helped him secure support from the city council. Strauss personally
traveled north, too, to lobby Marin County council members and business people. He
assured them that once a bridge was built from San Francisco, their businesses and
property values would grow. He gained their support. By 1932, the founder of San
Francisco-based Bank of America agreed to finance the estimated $30 million project.
Work started in 1933.
The Golden Gate Bridge blueprints were improved upon since Strausss original
submission. Strauss had little experience with suspension style bridges, so he hired a
team of architects who made significant contributions. Today, the Purdue professor
Charles Ellis is widely recognized as being the main architect behind the bridge, while
Strauss is regarded as its organizer and promoter. A San Francisco architect named Irving
Morrow, who was part of Strausss team, also made important contributions. He
suggested painting the bridge a color he called international orange. This would
complement the surrounding blues and greens of nature, and simultaneously make the
bridge visible through fog. (If the bridge coloring had been left to the government or
Strauss, it would likely have been black.) Irving also designed the bridges arches to play
with light throughout the day, making the bridge especially pleasing to the eye. Electric
lighting along the cables adds to the visual appeal at night.
The project was completed within four years and under budget at $27 million. The final
project was built to withstand the Bays high winds; it can sway 27 feet and still safely
hold traffic. It has only been closed a few times since 1937 when winds reached 70 miles
per hour.
Today, ferry service continues between San Francisco and Marin County, but the Golden
Gate Bridge carries over 40 million passengers each year.
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Should You Consider Travel Health Insurance,
Are you a recent college graduate looking for that dream summer back packing across Europe, A young adventurer who wants to re-trace the steps of Genghis Khan, A middle aged individual who is years overdue on a really good vacation, For many individuals, a truly great vacation includes traveling. Getting away means just that, getting away. But there is one major detail that many individuals tend to ignore that they shouldn’t: travel health insurance in case of emergency.
It’s funny how so many people think of the importance of having health insurance at home, where they even know doctors and hospitals, yet then they leave to take a trip overseas and don’t have any coverage at all. How can you leave your country without health insurance,
Contrary to popular belief, many plans do not cover you outside of the US. The last thing you need is to be stuck in a foreign emergency room with a broken arm, strange rash, or dysentery without any protection of health insurance and any ability to pay for service. Even things as small as rashes or infections can become a very big deal.
Travel health insurance has other benefits beyond just its obvious name. Don’t think of travel health insurance as just being health insurance for overseas, but think of it as kind of an overarching insurance that happens to include health. Many of these plans are cheap, and not only do they cover important fees such as hospital and medical expenses, but also things like lost luggage, trip cancellation, emergency dental work, evacuation, and even accidental death. If you can get all of this coverage for a cheap price, why would you even consider leaving without it, You can buy the policy, get an insurance card and an emergency number to call, and that’s it. You now have peace of mind.
When contemplating travel health insurance, many people only think of small things that don’t really matter in the larger picture: loss of money, stolen camera, or stolen luggage. Illness and accidents are possible realities wherever you go, and need to be accounted for. This is the purpose of travel insurance. To define it succinctly: travel health insurance is a policy specifically designed to protect and cover you from any and all possible risk you might run into while traveling abroad.
Travel health insurance is a great policy, and generally is very cheap. Most likely, and obviously you hope, that during a vacation overseas nothing will go wrong and you will enjoy a trip that will create memories worth lasting for a life time. But peace of mind is a good thing to have, and just in case things go wrong you want to have a plan in case a dream vacation ends up turning its head towards being an ugly nightmare.
Travel health insurance gives you this option, covering you in almost any event and helping to give a security abroad that you would hope to have even if you never left your front door. So find a good policy, and enjoy the trip!
TopInsuring Your Overseas Home
The number of UK residents how now have overseas homes is steadily on the increase. In some cases these overseas homes are for holiday purposes, such as with Spain, in other cases they’re bought for the purpose of spending at least part of the time of the owner’s retirement, such as with Cyprus. Either way, more often than not the British owner of the home would prefer not to have the overseas home insured by an offshore insurance provider, but rather by an insurance provider closer to home.
So, if you have an overseas home and would like a UK home insurance company to provide you with insurance, what can you expect to get,
Home Contents and Home Buildings Insurance
A number of providers of overseas home insurance policies have merged the home contents and home insurance policies to be an amalgamated overseas home insurance policy. This mega policy should cover you for both circumstances.
Public Liability Insurance
Should be a must, especially if you are considering renting the overseas home out for the part of the year that you are not there.
Lost Earnings
If you think that renting your overseas home about is going to be a major money spinner for you, you may well want to consider insuring yourself against any lost earnings. Basically, this insurance will reimburse you if your holiday tenants suddenly have to cancel.
Theft
As with mainland UK home insurance policies, you need to make sure you are protected against theft. All the usual precautions about invoicing your possession needs to be taken into consideration with your holiday home. Also, you need to check the excess deductibles carefully, as in most cases this can range from 50 – 200
Natural Disasters
As recent natural disaster such as the hurricanes, tsunami, and earth quakes have shown, certain geographical regions outside of the UK are more prone to natural disasters than the UK itself is. Consequently, you should make sure that your overseas home is adequately insured against this risk.
Insurance for your overseas home can be arranged cheaply over the internet, or else you can arrange to have the insurance provider by a specialist overseas home insurance company in your area. Do keep in mind that as this is effectively your second home, your home insurance premiums will be marginally higher than you may normally be expected to pay with the home you live in, especially if you are using the home in any way to generate income.
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