4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2024
⏱️ 20 minutes
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January 5, 1933. After years of planning, construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge, a process that proves to be challenging in its own right.
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0:00.0 | There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. |
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0:06.0 | Or you can get all of History Daily, plus other fantastic history podcasts at |
0:10.5 | Into History. |
0:11.5 | com. It's 1936 in San Francisco. |
0:14.0 | It's 1936 in San Francisco. |
0:24.0 | Bridge builder Al-Zampa is several hundred feet in the air, |
0:28.0 | working on one of the towers that will eventually become the Golden Gate Bridge. |
0:32.0 | Today, Alan, his fellow workers are stringing up and bolting in the huge cables that will help |
0:37.0 | distribute the weight across the entire bridge. |
0:40.3 | Its slow, dangerous work involving many pairs of hands and a lot of coordination. |
0:45.0 | Up here in the mist, visibility is low. |
0:48.0 | The condensation makes everything damp and slippery, and there's no rigging to keep Al tethered to his post. |
0:55.0 | A sudden gust of wind could easily knock him off balance and there's little for him to grab |
0:59.5 | on to if that happens. |
1:01.8 | The only safeguard in place is a large net down at the base of the bridge, close to the rocks. |
1:07.0 | It stretches out 10 feet past the bridge's edge. |
1:10.0 | It should be able to catch anyone who has the misfortune of slipping, but with the wind, the |
1:15.7 | unpredictable weather and the height, that's not always a guarantee. |
1:20.8 | But Al understands the dangers of his job. Years of experience have made him comfortable working up high with nothing but his own hands to keep himself steady. |
1:30.0 | So confidently, Al moves toward the large crane being used to pull cables up to his workspace. |
1:36.0 | He needs to push it forward before he can complete his next task, so gingerly he steps around the crane to get a better grip. |
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