Lights May Grace Golden Gate Bridge for Its 50th Anniversary

SAN FRANCISCO —  The Golden Gate Bridge celebrates its 50th birthday in May, 1987, and may get a present of lights to illuminate its twin 750-foot towers at night.

Original plans for the span called for the “towers to be lit as one sweep from the water to summit,” but its builders ran out of money to accomplish it after completion in 1937.

The proposal gathered dust in the bridge district’s offices until 1971. Then money once again became a problem. The oil crisis began, and the cost of energy skyrocketed.

Recently San Francisco Supervisor John Molinari resurrected the idea, and the district decided to give $15,000 to Bowles & Associates, an architectural firm, to study its feasibility.

“This is not to be just a bunch of lights on the bridge,” Molinari said in an interview. “We plan to maintain its beauty and integrity.”

Daniel Mohn, chief bridge engineer, said the lighting program could cost $1 million to $5 million and the money would have to come from private contributions.

The original plan, by architect Irving Morrow, said the towers above the roadway “should be enveloped in a mellow glow of moderate intensity” and the level of light “should begin to diminish in intensity until the tops are more than scarcely discernible.”

Mohn said that before the project is started, it will have to be reviewed by the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Historical Preservation Board.

Morrow’s plan also said it should be completed with “simplicity and sobriety.”

“Tricky, flashy or spectacular effects should be unworthy of the dignity and permance of the bridge and put it into the class of temporary expositions, or worse yet, of frivolous amusement parks.”