Crowds Gather to Celebrate Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th Anniversary
June 15, 2012
Byline: Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Thousands of people flocked to San Francisco’s waterfront and onto the Golden Gate Bridge May 27 to celebrate the famous span’s 75th birthday.
The daylong party attracted pleasureboats, tugboats and other vessels to the water as people on shore enjoyed a number of events stretching from Fort Point south of the bridge to Pier 39 along the Embarcadero. Many walked and biked across the bridge before capping the day by watching a fireworks display over the city’s enduring symbol.
The bridge was shrouded in fog during part of the day, but skies were clear by nightfall for the 18 minute-long fireworks show.
Since it opened in 1937, more than 2 billion vehicles have crossed the 1.7-mile-long bridge named after the Golden Gate Strait, the entrance of water to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean, and championed by engineer Joseph Strauss in the 1920s.
