"From here, the grandest, scrambling of lights you have ever seen. Red ones, green ones, white and yellow ones. Pale ones, creamy ones and blue ones. Lights blinking, red ones being waved. Funny. No railroad crossings out here. Oh! that's right. They're building a bridge. Possibly that has to do with all the cable spinning. Lots of ants, undoubtfully men, running up and down..."
Charles Joseph "Joe" Knedel, Bottom of Pier W-3, San Francisco Bay Unit, S.F.O.B.B. July, 1935
1935
2017
Standing at the intersection of Harrison Street and Main Street, Joe snapped a shot of the newly constructed Bay Bridge towers capturing the Steinway and Sons storefront on Main Street and the Hills Brothers Coffee Co. sign atop their brick factory at 2 Harrison Street.
1935
2018
2018
From a perch atop Yerba Buena Island, Joe's photograph details the alignment of the towers approaching San Francisco and the excavation of the anchorage at the island. A bridge designed for an estimated 8,000,000 vehicles annually now carries over 45,000,000 vehicles every year.
1936
2017
Photographed from the water, Joe's image captured the bridge nearing completion, but upon closer inspection one can see the sky through the incomplete truss work of the upper deck, and the suspension spans have not yet been connected at the piers.
1936
2017
In 1936 Joe captured this image of the Matson liner SS Malolo crossing in front of pier W-3. The SS Malolo was considered one of the most technically advanced and most luxurious liners of her time, She was the fastest ship in the Pacific with a cruising speed of 22 knots and made regular voyages from the west coast of California to the Hawaiian Islands. Matson, Inc (formerly Matson Navigation Company) still operates a fleet of ships to this day, now providing container shipping services Pacific-wide, predominantly to and from the Hawaiian Islands.
1936
2017
Joe's photograph highlights the skeleton structure of the suspended trusses as they approach their completion at Pier W-3, while the incredible reflection of sun on the completed tower ripples on the water.
1935
2017
The center anchorage at pier W-4 of the bay bridge extends to bedrock at a maximum of 222 feet below the water and when completed extended 281 feet above the water. Construction of the piers required more than 1,000,000 cubic yards of concrete, with the center anchorage consisting of more concrete than the empire state building. Joe's photograph captured the shadow of the newly constructed tower at Pier W-3 on the massive concrete of Pier W-4.
1935
2017
From the deck of a boat, Joe captured this image at pier W-4 as the suspended spans of the bridge approached the center anchorage.
Joe's eye for people is exemplified by these two images of his colleagues working hard to spin the cables that would support the entire western span (or resting from their efforts). The main cables contained 38,000,000 pounds of wire with a total length of 71,000 miles.
Joe's hand provides the perfect scale for the huge bolts used in the foundation system. In the background we can see the initial progress as the piers begin to break the surface the of water with Yerba Buena Island in the background.
"Sitting out here on the eye bars on the top. Nothing but 2 inches of planking and 501.39 feet of air between me and water."
~Charles Joseph "Joe" Knedel