Category Archives: San Francisco

Technological Sublime: The Golden Gate Bridge Opened May 27, 1937

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Below is a short article with quotes, photos and video of vintage footage shot on the the Golden Gate Bridge opened 74 years ago today.

Here is a cool video I found that fuses personal video with some historic “making of” the bridge video.

Via Scoop.it – San Francisco’s Life

Welcome to San Francisco. It’s May 27, 1937 and the Golden Gate Bridge is open for business. You could be one of the 200,000 people streaming across the new structure that day (above), or maybe you just glance over from time-to-time from your apartment at what had once seemed impossible. Either way, chances are you were filled the feeling of “the technological sublime,” as the historian David Nye calls it.
Americans have a peculiar desire for the technological sublime, Nye argues, finding “essentially religious feeling” in our own creations. Technology serves the role in this country what religion does in less pluralistic societies. It binds us together through ritual pilgrimages to the sites of our collective achievements, achievements like the Golden Gate Bridge.
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San Francisco’s Imperial Fleet Week

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Fleet Week has always been one of my favorite times of the year to be in San Francisco.  Always loved those Friday afternoon fly-bys, seeing those Blue Angels skim skyscrapers and slip beneth the Golden Gate Bridge.

I remember one time shakin’ my groove thing at Golden Gate Park as the Blue Angels screamed overhead along the Ocen Beach coast line — mix of hippy tunes and thunderous military might.

When my boy was just five months old, I stuffed him into the kangaroo pouch and stepped up to Coit Tower.  He was born wide-eyed, and on that day he really did try to train his little eyes on aircraft speeding mightily above us.

But this year was a whole new, Imperial Fleet Week experience! Thanks for my Intel buddy Jeff for sharing this with me, replying to my Fleet Week Twitters.