The Half Way to Hell Club was an exclusive club organized by the men who fell from the Golden Gate Bridge during its construction in 1936 and 1937 and were saved by the safety nets. One of the club's earliest members was Iron Worker Al Zampa who fell into the safety nets in October 1936. [1]
Al Zampa (1905–2000), as one of the club's first members and presumably the last surviving member, became the unofficial spokesman for the club. According to Zampa, when a man fell to his death from a bridge it was said "he's gone to hell." The men who fell and were saved by the nets were said to have fallen only "half way to hell."
Zampa goes on: "There were ten of us that fell into the nets those first few weeks. Four got hurt. I was one of them. We were in the hospital together. We formed the club right there in St. Luke's Hospital." [2]
Newspaper accounts sketch out some details and give some of the names of the 19 members who rounded out the club. No complete list of names has been found, and only one photo is known to exist from that time of the early group.
Photographer and bridge historian John V. Robinson listed ten of the nineteen members of the Half Way to Hell club in his 2004 book Spanning the Strait as: [3]
Robinson writes in his book that no one is really sure what became of the 19 men who fell into the nets. No complete list of names has ever been discovered. Al Zampa, who lived to age 95, may have been the last surviving member of the club, and it is very unlikely that any members are still alive.
The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, with the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, from Manhattan Island, and from the Bronx on the North American mainland.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km) strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula—to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. It also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and is designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95. Recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Wonders of the Modern World, the bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco and California.
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
Benicia is a city in Solano County, California, located on the north bank of the Carquinez Strait in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It served as the capital of California for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 27,131 at the 2020 United States Census. Benicia is just east of Vallejo and across the strait from Martinez.
Crockett is a census-designated place (CDP) in Contra Costa County, in the East Bay sub-region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. The population was 3,094 at the 2010 census. It is located 28 miles northeast of San Francisco. Other nearby communities include Port Costa, Martinez, Vallejo, Benicia, Rodeo, Hercules, Pinole and Richmond.
Martinez is a city and the county seat of Contra Costa County, California, United States, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Located on the southern shore of the Carquinez Strait, the city's population was 37,287 at the 2020 census. The city is named after Californio ranchero Ygnacio Martínez, having been founded on his Rancho El Pinole. Martinez is known for its historic center and its waterfront.
Port Costa is a small town and census-designated place (CDP) in Contra Costa County, California, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Situated on the southern shore of the Carquinez Strait, the population was 190 in 2020 according to the United States Census Bureau.
Hell Gate is a narrow tidal strait in the East River in New York City. It separates Astoria, Queens, from Randall's and Wards Islands in Manhattan.
The Carquinez Strait is a narrow tidal strait located in the Bay Area of Northern California, United States. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay. The strait is eight miles (13 km) long and connects Suisun Bay, which receives the waters of the combined rivers, with San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of the San Francisco Bay.
The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, also called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge and Second Narrows Bridge, is the second bridge constructed at the Second (east) Narrows of Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Originally named the Second Narrows Bridge, it connects Vancouver to the North Shore of Burrard Inlet, which includes the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver. It was constructed adjacent to the older Second Narrows Bridge, which is now exclusively a rail bridge. Its construction, from 1956 to 1960, was marred by a multi-death collapse on June 17, 1958. The First Narrows Bridge, better known as Lions Gate Bridge, crosses Burrard Inlet about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) west of the Second Narrows.
David Barnard Steinman was an American civil engineer. He was the designer of the Mackinac Bridge and many other notable bridges, and a published author. He grew up in New York City's lower Manhattan, and lived with the ambition of making his mark on the Brooklyn Bridge that he lived under. In 1906 he earned a bachelor's degree from City College and in 1909, a Master of Arts from Columbia University and a Doctorate in 1911. He also received an honorary Doctor of Science in Engineering on 15 April 1952 from degree mill Sequoia University, but would distance himself from it soon after a 1957 inquiry raised doubts over its legitimacy, and did not mention the qualifications in his biographies. He was awarded the Franklin Institute's Louis E. Levy Medal in 1957.
The Carquinez Bridge is a pair of parallel bridges spanning the Carquinez Strait at the northeastern end of San Francisco Bay. They form the part of Interstate 80 between Crockett and Vallejo, California, United States.
Jindo (Korean: 진도) is the third largest island in South Korea. Together with a group of much smaller islands, it forms Jindo County.
The Smithfield Street Bridge is a lenticular truss bridge crossing the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Alfred Zampa was an American iron worker who played a role in the construction of numerous San Francisco Bay Area bridges during the early twentieth century. He was most notable for being one of the first people to survive falling off the Golden Gate Bridge. He was a charter member of the Half Way to Hell Club, whose members are the men who fell from the Golden Gate Bridge and were saved by the nets.
John Swett High School is located in Crockett, California, United States. It serves the communities of Crockett, Port Costa, Rodeo, and the Foxboro area of Hercules. It is named after John Swett, former California Superintendent of Public Instruction, elected in 1863. John Swett High School was established in 1927. The school remains in its original building complex, which was extensively renovated five years after original construction for seismic retrofitting at a cost of two-thirds of the original cost of the complex. John Swett High School is part of the John Swett Unified School District.
Selby is an unincorporated community in Contra Costa County, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California.
John V. Robinson is an American writer and photojournalist who specializes in photographing heavy construction work with a focus on bridge construction and the men and women who do the work. Robinson goes onto construction sites and does detailed photo essays of the iron workers, pile drivers, carpenters, laborers, and crane operators who do this demanding and dangerous work. He frequently collects oral histories of the workers.
"Halfway to Hell" is a 2023 song by Jelly Roll.