The stretch of water known as San Francisco Bay was transformed in the 1930s. No one intended this, but the bay, famous for rapid shifts in weather, light and mood, became a kind of stage set for a drama that might have been entitled 'What makes the US run?' In November 1936, the Bay Bridge opened, linking San Francisco and Oakland and Berkeley, with Yerba Buena Island as a stepping-stone. Then, in April 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge appeared, connecting the northwest tip of San Francisco (Fort Point) to Marin County and the north. The Golden Gate - painted a kind of brick-red, running north-south, and serving as the transom to the Pacific - is shorter, but it is better looking and better known. One of the most striking views of the Golden Gate can be had from a small rocky island due east. But if you wanted to see it from there you had to be a prisoner or a guard on Alcatraz, an island named by the Spanish explorers for the pelicans that once flew there. Well, the pelicans got away.

LRB 26 March 2009 | PDF Download