San Francisco

From this lookout we enjoy one of the most spectacular views of San Francisco. As you can see, the city rests on a series of hills varying in altitude from sea level to 938 feet.

The first permanent settlement was made at this site in 1776 when a Spanish military post was established on the end of that peninsula. During the same year, some Franciscan Fathers founded the Mission San Francisco de Asis on a hill above the post. A trail was cleared from the military post to the mission, and about halfway between the two, a station was established for travelers called Yerba Buena, which means “the place were good herbs grow”.

For 13 years the village had fewer than one hundred inhabitants. But in 1848, with the discovery of gold, the population grew to ten thousand. The same year, the name was changed from Yerba Buena to San Francisco.

By 1862 telegraph communications linked San Francisco with eastern cities, and by 1869, the first transcontinental railroad connected the Pacific coast with the Atlantic seaboard. Today San Francisco has population over almost 3 million. It is a financial center of the West, and serves as the terminus for trans-Pacific steamship lines and air traffic. The port of San Francisco, which is almost 18 miles long with forty-two piers, handles between 5 and 6 million tons of cargo annually.

And now, if you will look to your right, you should just be able to see the east section of the Golden gate Bridge. The bridge, which is more than one mile long, spans the harbor from San Francisco to Marin County and the Redwood Highway. It was completed in 1937 at a cost of $ 32 million and is still one of the largest suspension bridges in the world.

39. How long is the Golden Gate Bridge?

40. According to the tour guide, what happened in 1848?

41. What was the settlement called before it was renamed San Francisco?

42. What is the population of San Francisco today?

43. How much did it cost to complete construction of the Golden Gate Bridge?

(from TOEFL Tests, by P.Sharpe. Model Test 4. Mini-Talk 2)

UNIT 2

Lesson A

London

You will all have seen from the handouts which you have in front of you that I propose to divide this course of lectures on the urban and architectural development of London into three main sections, and perhaps I could just point out, right at the beginning, that there will be a good deal of overlap between them. They are intended to stand as separate, self-contained units. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that anyone who tried to deal entirely separately with the past, the present and the course of development in the future, would be misrepresenting the way in which the urban growth takes place.

Now by way of introduction, I’d like to try and give some indication of how London itself originated; of what developmental trends were built into it, as it were, from the very outset; and of how these trends have affected its growth. It started, of course, not as one but as two cities. The Romans built a bridge across the Thames at a point where the estuary was narrow enough to make this a practical proposition; and the encampment associated with the bridge grew up on the north bank of the river. The principal fort of this encampment was on the side now occupied by the Tower. Further to the west, at a point where the river was fordable, an abbey – the Abbey of Westminster – was founded, and two towns grew up side by side – one centred on the Roman camp, and the other on the Abbey.

Now in my next lecture I hope to demonstrate in detail that this state of affairs – this double focus, as we might call it – was of crucial importance for the subsequent growth of London as a city; and that it had, moreover, a decisive influence on the architecture associated with the city. But for the moment all I want you to do is to keep the fact of this double centre in mind, and to consider in a fairly general way what the early consequences were.

Well, the first consequence, I suppose, is that the importance of the river itself was increased. Obviously, the river was from the beginning vitally important as the link with the outside world – the route followed by almost all traffic with the Continent. But in addition to this, it was also in the first place the most important means of communication between the town centred on the Roman fort, which subsequently grew into the city of London – the city of trade and the Merchant Guilds, and the other town focused on the Abbey – the Royal City of Westminster.

That was the first, and in many ways the most vital consequence of the double centre, as we’ve called it. But now, before mentioning some of the other consequences – and there were many of them, some very important and some much less so – now, I’d like, if I may, to spend some time on this matter of internal communications, I’d like you to consider what happened as the two towns began to expand. What, do you think, the main consequences of expansion were? Well, obviously, the pressure for communication increased enormously, and the waterway itself became unable to supply the demand. And so, in addition, a road network began to develop, thus adding another physical bond between the two towns, and opening up the way for the urban proliferation which eventually cemented them together.

But it’s not the linking process that I’m concerned with just now – I shall go into this in greater detail later in the course – so let me concentrate on the growth of the land communications in early London. The chief road link was, of course, along what we now call the Strand, running from the City Bar to Charing Cross, and along the line of the Strand were built some of the great houses, such as Somerset House, which were at one and the same time in contact with the land route, and with the water route. They had road gates at the front, and at the rear their grounds reached down to water gates giving access to the river.

(from Advanced English Course, by D.Crystal, D.Davy. Part 1. Unit 6)

UNIT 2

Lesson B

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