Sunday, May 27, 2012

Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge

I went down to the San Francisco waterfront yesterday to see the USS Iowa en route to her new home in Southern California, and there's no better place to view the Golden Gate than from the barbette tier of the Civil War-era Fort Point.

At a time when destroying historic sites in the name of progress (1930s) did not raise many eyebrows or howls of protest, Golden Gate Bridge Chief Engineer Joseph Straussto his everlasting creditsaved the old fort by incorporating a massive arch near the bridge's southern anchorage.

Happy 75th Birthday to the Golden Gate Bridge!
Under the arch
1870 view of Fort Point

USS Iowa passing through the Golden Gate, May 26, 2012
The USS Iowa seen from one of Ft. Point's embrasures

3 comments:

James F. Epperson said...

Nice photos!

Anonymous said...

David, allow me to introduce myself. I am Keith Muchowski. I'm a librarian who lives and works in Brooklyn. I also blog at thestrawfoot.com. I saw this piece in the New York Times and thought I would pass along:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/arts/design/art-show-celebrates-75-years-of-the-golden-gate.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Keith

dw said...

Hi Keith, thanks for introducing yourself, and for commenting. That NYT article is really interesting -- thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Nice work on the blog -- I'll have to spend some time there catching up.

David