The Making of an Icon
How alumna Ruth Bley lit the eastern span of the Bay Bridge — and redefined the region’s skyline
California Gov. Frank Merriam couldn’t have known when he read the above lines at the opening ceremony of the Bay Bridge in November 1936 how many future generations of pioneers it would take to sustain the most vital and heavily traveled artery in the region.
He also couldn’t have predicted — though he was surely aware of — the incredible forces of nature at work in the bay. Forces that kept the project locked in the dream-stage for decades, and demanded the state’s best engineers to innovate spanning 8 miles of water through torrential winds, corrosive saltwater and hibernating fault lines.
And then, after surmounting all those obstacles, the Loma Prieta earthquake came to call. At a magnitude of 6.9, the 1989 quake ripped through the fault lines that run parallel to the Bay Bridge on both sides, causing a portion of its top deck to collapse. Politicians of the day began earnestly planning the bridge’s replacement — a massive undertaking that required a fresh wave of pioneers to not only improve upon one of the most difficult suspension bridges ever built, but to construct something worthy of defining the East Bay skyline. A new icon.