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Bay Bridge Wreath Returns to Mark Holiday Season

Workers have again hung a wreath above the Yerba Buena Tunnel entrance this year to mark the holiday season. 
Credit
Sam Burbank

Keeping with a great tradition started nearly eighty years ago, Caltrans and Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) workers again this year have hung a wreath above the Bay Bridge’s westbound entrance to the Yerba Buena Tunnel to mark the holiday season. This makes the seventh consecutive year BATA and Caltrans have teamed up to extend holiday season greetings to travelers on the region’s busiest transbay crossing.

The 13-foot, eight-inch wreath features a steel frame with artificial foliage, ornaments and ribbon. Permanent anchors for the wreath were installed above the portal in 2011, enabling BATA and Caltrans to re-use the same piece each year. The wreath will remain in place until early January, when crews will remove the decoration and place it in storage for use during the 2017-18 holiday season.

A holiday wreath was hung for the first time in December 1937 above the westbound entrance to the Yerba Buena Tunnel. Made from California redwood branches, this wreath was tied with bows that measured eight feet wide and four feet long.

1937 Wreath

This photograph, taken by Gabriel Moulin on December 22, 1937, captures the first holiday wreath hung above the Yerba Buena Tunnel.

Photo courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

A black and white photo of the first holiday wreath placed above the Yerba Buena Tunnel.

 

 

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