A Moving Landmark

San Francisco has the last manually operated cable car system in the world with three lines operating on those steep hills.   The cable cars got their start when a heavily laden horse drawn streetcar slipped backwards on a slippery street causing the animals to die. A witness, Andrew Halide used wire rope (the same that was used for the bridges) to start the first cable car system in 1873.  Eventually there were 23 lines, but with electricity available there was a push to convert lines to electric lines and after the 1906 quake this escalated leaving just a few lines.  In 1947 there was a push to eliminate them altogether in favor of buses, but the public fought for them to be retained.  In more recent years the systems were completely replaced and now they are one of the most popular attractions in the city and one of two moving National Historic Landmarks.

The technology behind them is simple.  There is an underground cable that runs under the trolley.  The cable is gripped with a vise-like mechanism that is operated via the grip lever in the front of the car and then the cable pulls the trolley along.  There are three brakes for when they want to stop.  The drawing shows the extent of the infrastructure underneath the cable car line.  The system is described in this 1881 article

At one of the intersections, two cable lines intersect. Because the California Street cable crosses above the Powell cable, the Powell cable must be dropped lest it slice the California cable in half, and the cable car must coast across the intersection. The cable car gripman must “drop the rope” precisely as the Powell car crests the hill, or the car will lose its momentum and slide backwards to Pine Street. It’s probably the trickiest maneuver a grip has to execute on the system.

Click the link and take a ride down the hill.

Whole Lot of Shaking Going On

California and San Francisco in particular are known for earthquakes because it straddles two tectonic plates, the North American and the Pacific which are separated by a large transform fault, the San Andreas Fault, which covers most of the coastline of California.  The Pacific Plate is moving north (LA is getting closer to San Francisco) and the tension built up from these plates causes earthquakes. Other faults extend from the San Andreas Fault. Most of the earthquakes cannot even be felt.  I remember reading in the newspaper as I was leaving San Francisco how many quakes there were during the week, more than 100, and I didn't feel any of them.  The news stations list the earthquakes over 2.0 on the richter scales as if it were rain or another weather event.  Although California has the reputation for them, Alaska actually has more earthquakes and more serious ones.

There have been 15 earthquakes ranging between 6.0 and 7.9 since 1800, but the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake clearly was the most significant. The earthquake occurred at 5:12 AM on April 18, 1906 and resulted in devastating fires which broke out and burned for four days.  More than 80% of the city was destroyed and it still ranks as one of the top disasters in the U.S.  The fires mainly caused by ruptured gas lines were actually responsible for about 90% of the damage. Although San Francisco rebuilt, the quake cause Los Angeles to be the dominant city in the state.

More recently, there was the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake during the World Series which caused a lot of property damage.  One of the lasting effects of that earthquake and a later one in Northridge is that the amount of seismic retrofitting has greatly expanded making buildings and other structures safer.  Fortunately we will be staying in a two story house while we are there.

Golden Gate, A Blend of Art and Engineering

Bridge in the Fog

One of the landmarks of San Francisco is the Golden Gate Bridge which is certainly the most photographed bridge in the world.  It was the longest suspension bridge when it was built and remained so from 1937 to 1964 and still ranks 11th in the world.  Its location and striking international orange color make it pop and make it visible in the fog which often rolls into the bay. Its been seen in many movies and t.v. shows which has also increased its popularity.  Sadly, one of the other things its famous for is suicides, its the second most popular spot in the world for suicides.

Suspension bridges are used to span long distances and over time those distances keep getting longer and longer. The first wire suspension bridge was built in Philadelphia in 1816 over the Schuylkill River and the Wire Bridge in Fairmount built in 1842 was the first wire cable suspension bridge in the US.  Today the Spring Garden Street bridge is on that spot.  In 1926, when the Benjamin Franklin Bridge was built in Philadelphia it was the longest span of its type, now it ranks 71st in length. The cables that hold the roadway are suspended from huge towers and the load of the bridge gets transferred by those cables to the anchorage systems. The technology is pretty amazing. The engineer who designed the Golden Gate also designed the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge which failed almost immediately upon its construction in 1940.  Great video of that bridge here.  All of these bridges are designed to move, but the trick is to control that movement and they did not make that deck stiff enough.

 The Golden Gate Bridge was debated for many years before construction actually began. The high tides, wind, fog and potential for earthquakes posed unique engineering challenges. The actual construction took four years with the steel being shipped all the way from Bethlehem Steel's plants on the East Coast. More than 600,000 rivets are located in each of its 746 ft. towers.  The construction featured the second time in history that hard hats were required on a construction site,  but eleven men died during construction (10 in one incident) and another 19 were saved by safety nets joining the Halfway to Hell Club.    As of May 30, 2012 1,970,331,117 vehicles have crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (includes northbound and southbound) since opening to traffic on May 28, 1937.

The bridge has been retrofitted to make it more earthquake resistant and undergoes constant maintenance with 13 ironworkers,  3 pusher ironworkers, and 34 painters battling the wind, sea air and fog to repair corroding steel.  Ironworkers replace corroding steel and rivets with high-strength steel bolts, make small fabrications for use on the Bridge, and assist painters with their rigging.  In the movies the bridge has been destroyed many times over. Google, Golden Gate Bridge who destroyed it best for a cool video of these collapses. (Couldn't get it to link). If the bridge were  reconstructed today it is estimated that it would cost over $1billion. 

One of the surprising things I learned about the bridge is that they use all electronic tolls.  Tourists like us need to prepay before crossing the bridge.  There are no toll takers and they gouge you if you cross without paying in advance.  A little too much technology if you ask me.

The Golden Gate Bridge

Written upon completion of the Bridge sometime in 1937

I am the thing that men denied,
The right to be, the urge to live;
And I am that which men defied,
Yet I ask naught for what I give.

My arms are flung across the deep,
Into the clouds my towers soar,
And where the waters never sleep,
I guard the California shore.

Pedestrians Jam the Bridge on its 50th Anniversary

Above the fogs of scorn and doubt,
Triumphant gleams my web of steel;
Still shall I ride the wild storms out,
And still the thrill of conquest feel.

The passing world may never know
The epic of my grim travail;
It matters not, nor friend or foe –
My place to serve and none to fail.

My being cradled in despair,
Now grown so wondrous fair and strong,
And glorified beyond compare,
Rebukes the error and the wrong.

Vast shafts of steel, wave-battered pier,
And all the splendor meant to be;
Wind-swept and free, these, year on year,
Shall chant my hymm of Victory!

Go Directly to Jail

A month from now, one of the first things we are going to do when we get to San Francisco is to go to jail!.  The Alcatraz tours are so popular we already have our tickets. 

Alcatraz is a small island 1.5 miles from the city that was a federal prison from 1933 to 1963 and before that it served as a military prison going all the way back to the civil war.  Due to its isolation by the cold, strong, hazardous currents of the waters of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz was used to house prisoners who caused trouble in other prisons.  Famous prisoners included  Al Capone, Robert Franklin Stroud (the Birdman of Alcatraz), George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Bumpy Johnson, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Arthur R. "Doc" Barker, and Alvin "Creepy" Karpis.

View of Cell Block

The island's most famous prisoner was probably Robert Stroud, the  "Birdman of Alcatraz."  In 1909, Stroud was convicted of manslaughter; while serving his prison sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington, he viciously attacked another inmate. This resulted in his transfer to the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1916, he murdered a Leavenworth guard, was convicted of first-degree murder, and received a death sentence. His mother pleaded for his life, and in 1920, President Woodrow Wilson commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.

 

Stroud's violent behavior earned him time in segregation. During his 30 years at Leavenworth, he raised nearly 300 canaries in his cells and wrote two books, Diseases of Canaries, and a later edition, Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds. He made several important contributions to avian pathology, most notably a cure for the hemorrhagic septicemia family of diseases. He gained respect and also some level of sympathy in the bird-loving field who sent 50,000 letters to the President after a 1931 attempt by prison officials to shut down the canary operation. However, contraband items were found hidden in the bird cages, and prison officials discovered that equipment Stroud had requested for his "scientific" studies had actually been used to construct a still for "home-brew." Stroud was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942, where he spent the next 17 years (6 years in segregation in "D Block" and 11 years in the prison hospital). In 1959, he was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, where he died on November 21, 1963.

Doc Barker

At Alcatraz, a prisoner had four rights: food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Everything else was a privilege that had to be earned. Some privileges a prisoner could earn included working, corresponding with and having visits from family members, access to the prison library, and recreational activities such as painting and music. Cells were 5 ft by 9 ft, but only held one prisoner which many prisoners liked since it allowed for privacy. Once prison officials felt a man no longer posed a threat and could follow the rules (usually after an average of five years on Alcatraz), he could then be transferred back to another Federal prison to finish his sentence and be released. 

 

During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary claimed that no prisoner successfully escaped. A total of 36 prisoners made 14 escape attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, two drowned, and five are listed as "missing and presumed drowned". The most violent occurred on May 2, 1946, when a failed escape attempt by six prisoners led to the Battle of Alcatraz.  Listen to a  radio story about this breakout.

Escape Cell with Dummy Head

On June 11, 1962, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin carried out one of the most intricate escapes ever devised.  Made famous by Clint Eastwood in the movie Escape from Alcatraz, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin vanished from their cells and were never seen again. A fourth man, Allen West, believed by some people to have been the mastermind, was also involved; however, he was still in his cell the next morning when the escape was discovered. An investigation revealed an intricate escape plot that involved homemade drills to enlarge vent holes, false wall segments, and realistic dummy heads (complete with human hair) placed in the beds so the inmates would not be missed during nighttime counts. The three men exited through vent holes located in the rear wall of their cell - they had enlarged the vent holes and made false vent/wall segments to conceal their work. Behind the rear wall of the cells is a utility corridor that had locked steel doors at either end. The three men climbed the utility pipes to the top of the cellblock, and gained access to the roof through an air vent (the men had previously bent the iron bars that blocked the air vent). They then climbed down a drainpipe on the northern end of the cellhouse and made their way to the water. It is believed they left from the northeast side of the island near the powerhouse/quartermaster building. They used prison-issued raincoats to make crude life vests and a pontoon-type raft to assist in their swim. A cellhouse search turned up the drills, heads, wall segments, and other tools, while the water search found two life vests (one in the bay, the other outside the Golden Gate), oars, and letters and photographs belonging to the Anglins that had been carefully wrapped to be watertight. But no sign of the men was found. Several weeks later, a man's body dressed in blue clothing similar to the prison uniform was found a short distance up the coast from San Francisco, but the body was too badly deteriorated to be identified. Morris and the Anglins are officially listed as missing and presumed drowned.

The prison closed in 1963 because of the high cost of operation and the age of the facilities.  It was was left abandoned. In 1969 it was occupied for two years by Native Americans who "claimed" the island based on the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie (a cool connection to our last trip) which promised to return all retired, abandoned or out-of-use federal lands to the Native peoples from whom it was acquired.

They started giving tours in 1972 and now more than 1 million people visit each year.

The audio cell block tours give the real life stories of the prisoners and you can visualize the escapes as you walk through the prison.
  
For an interesting site about the prison go to: http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/mainpg.htm

The people in my office will recognize this.  

Its a key

 

to an Alcatraz jail cell.  A replica is on the key ring for my office.