The Final Leap by John Bateson Read Free Book Online Page B

for upgrading ferries and the ferry terminal, and replaced some of the bridge’s vertical steel cables.
    In his book
November of the Soul: The Enigma of Suicide
, George Howe Colt describes driving down a restricted road just south of the Golden Gate Bridge toll plaza with Dr. Richard Seiden. There, in a meadow piled high with broken window casings, old ladders, chicken wire, and other detritus, Seiden showed Howe a steel fence. Writes Howe: “It was painted the same russet red as the Golden Gate Bridge. Its pencil-thin spires rose about eight feet into the air. On one-half of the fence the spires pointed toward the sky; on the other half they curved gently inward at the top, like the fingers of a cupped hand.” The two of them looked at the sculpture wordlessly for several seconds. Then Seiden said softly, “Winning design number 16. It’s been sitting there for years.”
    In 1973 Seiden, a Berkeley professor, wrote a paper published by the School of Public Health describing the magnetic attraction of certain suicide sites. Citing H. R. Fedden’s book
Suicide: A Social and Historical Study
, Seiden recounted that at
Les Invalides
in France there had not been a suicide for the two years prior to 1792. Then a soldier hanged himself from a beam in one of the corridors. Within weeks, twelve other soldiers hanged themselves from the same beam. When the governor closed the corridor, the suicides ended. Similarly, in 1813, in the Swiss village of Saint Pierre Monjau, a woman hanged herself from a large tree. It wasn’t long before other women died in the same way from the same branch. Seiden explained that the reasons why certain places develop a reputation for suicide are complex, but “an important component appears to be the fact that a person achieves the kind of notoriety and attention in death that he may not have received in a lifetime of loneliness and depression.” He went on to note that “particular methods or suicide plans have a deep personal significance, and are not capriciously transferred to another time or location.” Such is the case, he concluded, with the Golden Gate Bridge. It had developed a fatal lure. Seiden also cited examples—and several years later conducted his own research (described in chapter 8) to confirm—that if people are stopped from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, they won’t go somewhere else to kill themselves. For this reason, a suicide deterrent would be effective.
    In 1976, the Bridge District considered closing the span to pedestrians on weekdays. According to the board president, Edwin M. Fraser, “This would stop 90 percent of the suicides off the bridge.” Tourists could still walk the bridge on weekends, and the bike lane on the west side would remain open to cyclists. The proposal ignited much debate—people didn’t want to be denied access to the bridge—and eventually was defeated.
    The same year, the district installed a fence on the southern section of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was chain link, eight feet high, 350 feet long, and not at all in keeping with the design of the bridge. While the aesthetic impact of a suicide barrier on the bridge was of great concern to many people, no one complained about this fence. Its purpose was not to save lives; it was put up to stop litter. People were dropping rocks, bottles, beer cans, and even a bowling ball onto the grounds of Fort Point below, which often had visitors, and board members felt that they needed to be protected. “It has been a continuous problem,” Dale Luehring, the bridge general manager, said at the time. Warning signs were posted on the bridge telling people that if they willingly dropped or threw an object from the bridge, it would be a misdemeanor and they would be prosecuted.
    May 27, 1977, was the fortieth anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. It also was the day that the parents of a nineteen-year-old jumper,