Jon Christensen: The Golden Gate is now indelibly defined by this beautiful bridge. But why did the Golden Gate need a bridge in the first place?

John King: Part of it was very basic. The automobile was picking up popularity, and by all accounts you had two-to-three-hour waits to get across the gate on a Sunday night by car ferry. Beyond that was the business, cultural, and even manifest destiny of the dream of opening up the Redwood Empire, north of the city, and connecting everything from Buenos Aires to the Arctic, through San Francisco.

Anthea Hartig: The romance of the new automobiles came into play. But I also think it was the power of the idea to span this majestic, complicated narrow strait. There was something very contagious in that, especially in the Progressive Era. Man could fix things and make the world better in the aftermath of the horrors of World War I. These progressive ideas were very powerful in California.



Jon Christensen: Some people argued that the Golden Gate didn't need a bridge. Do you have any sympathy for their arguments?

Hartig: I do. Seeing Ansel Adams' photographs and the beauty of the gate before the bridge, I can see that. It was one of California's natural glories. Do you, John?

King: Not really. Call me old-fashioned, but the notion that a place should be frozen in time and be the same as when you first encountered it is quite romantic but not necessarily a way to build a region. There's a certain glory and accomplishment in the bridge.



Christensen: What's your own personal favorite Golden Gate Bridge story?

Hartig: My first time crossing the bridge was after graduating from high school. We rented a wreck from Rent-a-Wreck. It was a Maverick and we drove all around the Bay Area. For inland Los Angeles girls it was the best time. Crossing the bridge, wherever you are from in California, it's your bridge. And it's like being on a bridge in the sky. There are stunning bridges in downtown L.A., crossing the Los Angeles River. But I had never been that close to flying. The sky, the water, the color -- the bridge is truly an amazing piece of architecture.

King: I'm an East Bay boy. I took the bridge for granted. I don't have any transcendent moment. But what struck me most was going to Fort Point last year and being down there under the bridge and being overwhelmed by the immensity of the achievement. You're down there on this weird little spit of land next to a fort from the 1850s, and this enormous graceful thing lunges past you into the ocean.

Jon Christensen: The building of the bridge and the opening celebration -- a "Golden Gate Fiesta" -- 75 years ago was filled with symbolism.



King: There was this very strong cultural symbolism. There was a practical need for the bridge, but also a desire to say we're going to show everyone by doing this that we are the city of the Pacific. We are better than Los Angeles. I quoted an editorial from the San Francisco Call-Bulletin in a recent story that said, "We are breaking down our walls, we are building a mightier city than you have ever seen ... the happiest, bravest and most prosperous city in the world."