The bridge that spans 75 years of memories

The city of San Francisco is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge with a spectacular series of year-long parties and festivities.

There will be a string of guided tours, festivals and fireworks along the waterfront graced by the burnt-orange span since 1937.

“The Golden Gate Bridge stands today as a testament of innovation and imagination, a bridge built by the people during the Great Depression,” said Janet Reilly, president of the bridge district board.

She and dozens of other civic leaders, national parks officials, bridge authorities and supporters spoke before a backdrop of the bridge set against a crisp, blue winter sky.

Authorities, however, will not be inviting the public to walk together along the storied bridge that marks the opening to San Francisco Bay.

Officials tried that in 1987 for the 50th anniversary.

They closed down the bridge to traffic to replicate the opening-day festivities of 1937, when sprinters, roller skaters and tap dancers crossed what was then the world’s longest suspension bridge.

An estimated 250,000 people ambled across the 2.74-kilometre bridge from either end on May 27, 1987, more than double the anticipated crowd.

When they converged in the middle of the span, the human gridlock forced its majestic arch to flatten, creating mild panic and a few injuries before authorities could clear the crowd.

The bridge is built to be flexible and can move 4.8 metres vertically and more than 8.2 metres from side to side, allowing for weight fluctuations and the powerful winds that often howl through Golden Gate Strait, the 1.6km-wide channel that connects the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.

A multi-million dollar seismic retrofitting of the bridge is also under way.

Engineers in 1987 said the combination of weight and wind on that day felt like a mild earthquake to people on the bridge.

Authorities this weekend do not want a repeat of that highly publicised scare.

“There will not be a bridge walk – and we hope that will be the headline today,” Dennis Mulligan, general manager of the bridge district, said with emphasis on the word “not”.

Instead, there will be fireworks, a boating parade and music and dance performances.

Guided night tours will begin in April, and tourists can visit a newly constructed 325-square-metre museum and a café that serves locally grown, sustainable food.

There also is enhanced signage along hiking trails in the mountains surrounding the Golden Gate.

“The bridge is not the stage this time; rather, the community will come together to celebrate this engineering wonder,” Ms Reilly said.

Though widely beloved today, the bridge was not initially welcomed by all.

The suspension bridge claimed 11 lives during the four years it took to construct and was derided as ugly, with the San Francisco Chronicle calling it a “$35 million steel harp” the day it opened.

Famed conservation photographer Ansel Adams and the environmental watchdog group Sierra Club believed the man-made structure painted an international orange would detract from the natural green beauty of the Golden Gate.

Today, it is the most photographed bridge in the world.

A suspended engineering wonder

People gathered on Golden Gate Bridge on the 50th anniversary in 1985.

• The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean.

• It has been declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

• Construction on the project, valued at $35 million, began on January 5, 1933. The project was finished by April 1937.

• The bridge-opening celebration began on May 27, 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed by foot and roller skates.

• When completed in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 1,280.2 metres. Since 1964, its main span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges.

• The total length of the Golden Gate Bridge, including approaches from abutment to abutment, is 2,737 metres.

• At 211 metres (above water), the Golden Gate Bridge also had the world’s tallest suspension towers when built. It held that status until 1998, with the completion of bridges in Denmark and Japan.