Episode Transcript
Hello to all you dashing devils. Welcome to another macabre meditation from the Mortician’s Daughter. Your regular reader, and writer, could not be with us today so she asked me to step in and entertain you all with another dose of deadly dealings. But, first, a quick word from our sponsors…
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For this episode, we are going to be continuing our discussion of haunted locations and I'll be talking about a spot very near and dear to my heart: The Golden Gate Bridge. While I am first and foremost a desert rat, I did spend a number of years residing in the San Francisco Bay Area while I was attending school. I can still remember that first morning waking up in Berkeley. I stepped outside in summertime and rather than facing an assault of blistering heat, I found a gentle chill in the morning air. Fog hovered near the ground, drifting in from the Bay like a faint gray phantom, and I felt, in that moment, that this might be home.
I walked down the street, past Amoeba Records, and grabbed coffee at Club Med, right where Dustin Hoffman sat in The Graduate.
The next several years found me exploring the ins and outs of the Bay. The bookstores and coffee shops and records stores and everything else in between from the Muir Woods to Half Moon Bay.
And, of course, it felt like I crossed every bridge more than a hundred times, but none stood out quite as much as the Golden Gate. No surprise there. It is a world renowned architectural marvel. A rust colored wonder that divides the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean while connecting the city to the North Bay and its lush forests.
Interesting fact, the Golden Gate Bridge was originally going to be painted black with yellow stripes - to help ships spot it in the frequent fog. Now, the way the story was told to me was that when the bridge was coated in a red lead primer the designers of the bridge loved the color and sealed it in a topcoat as it was. But, Wikipedia contradicts my oral history, by explaining, “The color of the bridge is officially an orange vermilion called international orange.[52] The color was selected by consulting architect Irving Morrow[53] because it complements the natural surroundings and enhances the bridge's visibility in fog.”
Okay, fine, whatever.
Fact is, it can steal your breath when you catch sight of that orange vermilion beast of pillars and cables, the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world, reaching across 4,200 feet and stretching to a height of 746 feet.
Before the bridge, folx had to rely on ferries to move between San Francisco and Marin County, but the idea of any other option seemed pretty far-fetched in the early 1900s. The straight that connects the Bay to the Ocean is a massive stretch of water that is 372 feet deep at its center and constantly subject to fierce winds, blinding fog, and swirling tides.
It took Joseph Strauss, engineer and poet, to envision a way of designing and constructing a bridge. Of course, he partnered with a number of consultants, from engineers to architects, but Strauss was quick to downplay their involvement and we’re limited on time so I’m going to skip ahead past the design.
But, if you’re interested in bridge building, I suggest checking out the works of John V. Robinson who wrote Al Zampa and the Bay Area Bridges amongst other bridge-related tomes.
Anyway, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge was undeniably a massive effort and one that, unfortunately, claimed the lives of several workers. Construction of the bridge began in January of 1933 and it was opened to the public in May of 1937. Because of the innovative use of safety netting, only eleven men died. I say only because an additional 21 men fell off of the bridge during its construction.
And, once again, according to Wikipedia, “Of eleven men killed from falls during construction, ten were killed on February 17, 1937, when the bridge was near completion and the net failed under the stress of a scaffold that had fallen....[33] The platform fell into the safety net, but was too heavy and the net gave way.’
So, we can all agree, safety nets are a good thing… unless they break under the weight of scaffolding. Although, I would like to add that, in addition to those 19 men who fell from the bridge during construction and were saved by the safety nets, two additional workers actually plumented straight down into the water - and survived!
The Halfway to Hell Club was formed in the hospital in the weeks after construction started because, according to one founding member, IronWorker Al Zampa, "There were ten of us that fell into the nets those first few weeks. Four got hurt. I was one of them. We were in the hospital together. We formed the club right there in St. Luke's Hospital." And, once again, we have John Robinson to thank for that quote. He interviewed Zampa before he died in 2000.
Of course, the lives lost during construction pales in comparison to the number that have died on the Golden Gate Bridge in the years that followed. It is estimated that somewhere between 1500 and 2000 people have died jumping off the bridge.
In fact, The Golden Gate is the number two suicide bridge in the world. Second only to the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge in China which crossed the 2000 suicide mark in 2006.
And, just in case you’re wondering, “suicide bridge” is an actual term. And, just like the name suggests, these are bridges bequeathed the name because it is a frequent place chosen to commit suicide.
As someone who has experienced the effects of suicide within a family, can I just say, please don’t. I know life can be really hard, but suicide really sucks.
And if my just-say-no-to-suicide campaign isn’t helping here, please consider this. A person who jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge has a four second fall before they smash into the water at 75 miles per hour. If their body somehow survives that extreme force, and that happens, roughly 5% of the time, they die from drowning or hypothermia. It’s not a good way to go.
Anyway, San Francisco agrees with me. They’ve been working to reduce the suicide rate on the Golden Gate Bridge for sometime, including regular safety patrols, shutting down the walkways at night, and installing phones connected to a suicide prevention hotline. Suicide barriers began to be installed in April 2017 but completion on that project isn’t expected until 2021.
The frequency of suicide by bridge has led to some statistics that will leave you thinking. First off, suicide prevention advocates claim suicide by bridge is more impulsive than other modes of self-annihlation and, thus, barriers are a worthwhile effort.
According to an article in The New York Times written by Clifford Krauss, a “study of the Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington, D.C., showed that the building of a barrier there in 1986 did not cause a corresponding increase in suicides at the nearby Taft Bridge, suggesting that certain sites have a special draw for potential suicide jumpers. Given a barrier, those considering suicide are forced to pause, giving them an opportunity to rethink their predicament and seek help."
The Golden Gate Bridge might be our country’s most popular spot for jumpers, but as you can see, it’s certainly not alone, nationally or internationally.
The Mapo Bridge in Seoul, South Korea has been used to commit suicide so often that it’s called The Bridge of Death. And there’s also the Hornsey Lane Bridge in London where, in 2010, three men died within three weeks of each other by jumping. It was then that local residents unified their demand for safety measures which were finally approved in 2015.
But back to the Golden Gate Bridge. Some suggest the bridge is haunted by all those souls lost to suicide, perhaps condemned to a purgatory of pacing that 4200 feet stretch for all eternity. Visitors have reported hearing screams or seeing ghostly apparitions passing through the fog. Some even say they felt a strange force pulling them toward the edge and the watery depths below.
It is not only the bridge itself that has enough ghost stories to chill your bones. The water underneath the bridge has a story all its own.
Phantom ships - yes, people, we’re talking ghost ships - have been seen near the Golden Gate Bridge. Perhaps the most famous is the SS Tennessee, which succumbed to the treacherous waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and sank into the Bay back in 1853. Then, 89 years later in 1942, the crew of the USS Kennison watched the SS Tennessee in all its glory, sail right past them, leaving a wake of water, but no indication on their radar of having passed.
But the SS Tennessee wasn’t the first or last ship to fall victim to the heavy fogs and rough waters around San Francisco.
In fact, according to Megan Gannon of Live Science, "The waters just west of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge hide a graveyard of sunken ships. By some estimates, there are 300 wrecks in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area alone. But only a fraction of them have been seen by scientists.”
A graveyard of sunken ships beneath a suicide bridge, a barrier to the Pacific and the unending blue nothingness. Of course this is a place where grim legends are born.
I’d like to thank you for tuning in yet again. Please remember to follow us on your preferred podcasting platform. Or all of them. We’d certainly love it if you just follow us everywhere. Well, enough shameless self promotion. And keep tuning in. This year we have some exciting episodes in the works. From reincarnation to Baron Samdi, Mamon Brigitte, and the death cults of Voodoo.
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Episode 9: The Golden Gate Bridge of The Mortician’s Daughter was written by Carly Schorman and performed by Dana Stern. The theme song was written and performed by Travis James. Special thanks to the media team at YabYum Music + Arts and to our sponsors at FastSigns. Find out more about them on our sponsors page over at YabYumWest.com/sponsors and please support the businesses that support the arts.
