Photograph - 50th Anniversary of Golden Gate Bridge- SF

50th Anniversary of Golden Gate Bridge- SF

WHEN: May 24, 1987
LENGTH: 1.7 miles long
WHERE: San Francisco, California
PHOTOGRAPHER: Bob Kreisel

This is a photograph taken by Bob Kreisel on May 24th, 1987 of the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.

MORE THAN EXPECTED
On May 24th, 1987 the event celebrating the bridge's 50th anniversary anticipated a crowd of 80,000 people, but instead an estimated 800,000 people showed up!

HUMAN GRIDLOCK
Approximately 300,000 people actually engaged in the walk across the bridge resulting in shoulder to shoulder human gridlock. People could not move and were stuck like this for over 2 hours!

POTENTIAL DISASTER
The combined weight of the 300,000 people flattened the normally arched roadbed. This caused all 419,000 tons of the bridge to groan and sway. The motion made some seasick and the noise frightened everyone.

PANIC STARTS
Panic begins and people starting throwing bicycles and baby strollers over the rail and 220 feet to the water below. Sone people were injuried, but no one died and the bridge was not damaged from the event.

FACTS
The Golden Gate Bridge, opened on May 27th, 1937 at a cost of just under $27 million.

The bridge spans almost two miles across the Golden Gate, the narrow strait where San Francisco Bay opens to meet the Pacific Ocean.

Each of the bridge's towers have approximately 600,000 rivets.

It took four years to build and 11 men lost their lives during that time.

DON'T DO IT
Over 1500 people have jumped off the bridge, including at least 7 known jumpers in 2021.

Amazingly.. hitting the water at around 75 mph, more than 30 bridge jumpers have actually survived their attempts. Even if you survived the jump and internal injuries, you would still face drowning and hypothermia

There are 11 crisis counseling telephones on the bridge that connect to trained suicide prevention counselors. Over 118 people have been talked down from jumping.