Introduction

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California is one of the most iconic pieces of infrastructure in America today.  Designed by engineer Joseph Strauss, the 4200 feet long bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world when construction finished on January 5, 1937, and it remains in the top twenty longest suspension bridges to this day. In this blog, I want to go over some of the details behind this marvel of engineering, and describe what makes it so special.

History

The Golden Gate looks great now that is finished, but why was it built in the first place? After all, going about designing, funding, and constructing such a massive project (especially a century ago) was an extremely difficult task. In fact, convincing locals that the bridge was even worth their tax money took six years- the city first started looking for designers in 1919, in 1921 Strauss revealed his design, and it wasn’t until 1925 that the surrounding areas of Morin, Del Norte, Sonoma, and others agreed. The single biggest driving factor for the decision came down to geography; as shown in the map above, San Francisco is a peninsula that separates the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco Bay. Additionally, the Port of San Francisco transported more cargo than every other Western port combined by the end of 19th century, making it a source of economic growth for the area; if San Francisco could be connected to the area up north, almost everyone would benefit. An integral part of the plan was to get permission from the War department to create a special district in order to better organize the transportation of materials and allocation of funds. Since this permit would basically mean complete government approval of the project, special interest groups (such as the ferry industry) that made money off of the Bay being disconnected lobbied hard against it. In the end, the engineers won, and the permit was approved.

The Bridge

Construction began in 1933, 8 years after all the necessary permits were acquired, because the Great Depression froze all projects for a while. It was only because of a six million dollar stimulus from Bank of America president Amadeo Giannini that developers broke ground. As shown in the picture above, construction was long and treacherous. With towers that extend 746 feet into the sky, workers had to stand 53 stories above sea level to get everything done.

Because part of the structure is rooted in the water, divers had to descend up to 110 feet in the cold, murky water to set up dynamite and clear out the area. However, despite the dangerous conditions, less than a dozen people died, setting a record for working condition safety at the time. As the image below shows, lead engineer Joseph Strauss spent $130,000 on a safety net to protect anyone who fell during construction. It ended up saving 19 people in total, before a 5-ton platform fell and tragically took the lived of ten people.

In the end, construction took four years, cost $35 million dollars, and used over ten different contracting companies.

Over the past decade, New York City’s iconic skyline has undergone a massive transformation, with new developments popping up all across Manhattan. Although there are new real estate projects throughout the entire city, one street in particular has seen exceptional amounts investment in the past couple of years; 57th Street, Manhattan, on the southern edge of Central Park (also known as “Billionaire’s Row”) is now home to some of the thinnest, tallest, and most expensive properties in the world. Although some embrace the new buildings as symbols of prosperity in the twenty-first century, others characterize them as signs of excess in an increasingly stratified city.

The Good

As shown in the graphic above, Billionaire’s Row is comprised of eight luxury towers built in the past ten years (7 of which were built in the past five). Together, these eight buildings hold a plethora of records between them. For example, standing at 1550 feet, Central Park (Nordstrom) Tower is the tallest residential building in the world. Meanwhile, Steinway Tower (111 57th) holds the title of the skinniest building in the world, with a height-to-width ratio of 24:1 (in comparison, the Empire State has a height-to-width ratio of 1:2.95). And collectively, the buildings made Central Park South the most expensive street in NYC in 2019, with a median price of $9.7 million, and an average sale price of $22.452 million (a figure that has only gone up since).

Whether the buildings are really worth this much or have any practical value is debatable. But they are undeniably cool. As mentioned above, these skyscrapers are incredibly thin. Thanks to advancements in construction techniques and clever tricks , these buildings are not only feasible to build, but inhabitable. One of these tricks is shown above, in the image of 432 Park Avenue. If you look closely at the center of the frame, you will notice that two floors have no apartments or windows inside of them; they are completely empty. Instead, these floors contain structural equipment inside of them, while the lack of windows allows wind to pass through, reducing the swaying the building (and its residents) experiences. In fact, 25% of the floors on 432 Park Avenue are so-called “structural floors”, meant to house equipment that maintains the integrity of the building.

The Bad

Although impressive, it is clear from the numbers above that these buildings were never meant for the average consumer. So then why were they build? According to former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2013, it was to attract investment from super-wealthy elites both domestically and abroad “because that’s where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else.” At the time, it seemed, like a reasonable idea; after all, more property sales mean more property taxes, and in a city where property taxes are the main source of government income, it means more benefits for everyone. There’s only one problem, though: nearly a decade after the first development on Billionaire’s Row opened its doors to residents, almost half the apartments remain not only empty, but unsold to this day. In a city where twenty-thousand people have to rely on shelters, there are 250,000 housing units that remain empty to this day.

The main problem with Bloomberg’s reasoning is that the people purchasing these homes are not looking for permanent residences, but rather pied-à-terres (seasonal homes) or investment properties. Therefore, many homeowners  on Billionaire’s Row do not pay federal, state, or local taxes. In addition, legal loopholes such as the New York City 421a tax abatement gives housing developers tax credit if they build affordable housing in other parts of the city. Although this sounds good in theory, the reality is that billionaires use this rule to their advantage to pay on average, 1/100th the property tax rate as other citizens in the city, in exchange for building questionable quality housing in areas where the demand for housing is not as high.