Golden Gate celebrates 75th with tours, fireworks
With sailors on deck, the USS Nimitz passes beneath the Golden Gate Bridge during a celebration of the bridge's 75th anniversary on Sunday, May 27, 2012, in San Francisco. The commemoration included a vintage car show, an exhibit of roughly 1,558 pairs of shoes representing people who have committed suicide by jumping from the span, and a fireworks display slated for evening. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
In this photo taken Wednesday, April, 18, 2012, a sign marking its 75th anniversary is shown near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The bridge was heralded as an engineering marvel when it opened in 1937. It was the world's longest suspension span and had been built across a strait that critics said was too treacherous to be bridged. But as the iconic span approaches its 75th anniversary, the engineers who have overseen it all these years say keeping it up and open has been a feat unto itself. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
File - In this May 24, 1987 file photo, a crowd estimated at several hundred thousand jams the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco during a walk to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bridge. The bridge was heralded as an engineering marvel when it opened in 1937. It was the world's longest suspension span and had been built across a strait that critics said was too treacherous to be bridged. But as the iconic span approaches its 75th anniversary, the engineers who have overseen it all these years say keeping it up and open has been a feat unto itself. (AP Photo/Doug Atkins, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 4, 2009 file photo, The Golden Gate Bridge is lit at dusk at Fort Point in San Francisco. It served as a picturesque backdrop for Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak?s tensely romantic first meeting in ?Vertigo? in 1958, made the cover of Rolling Stone in the ?70s and was nearly decimated by a falling Romulan drill-of-death in 2009?s ?Star Trek.? One way or another, the Golden Gate Bridge has packed a lot of history into its 75-year span. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, file)
An exhibit of shoes in remembrance of people who have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge is displayed during a commemoration of the bridge's 75th anniversary on Sunday, May 27, 2012, in San Francisco. The Bridge Rail Foundation, which advocates for a safety net along the span to prevent suicides, estimates approximately 1,558 people have died after jumping since the bridge opened. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
SAN FRANCISCO >> Crowds gathered along San Francisco’s waterfront Sunday, while San Francisco Bay was crowded with pleasure boats, tug boats and other vessels as the city celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Tens of thousands of people were expected to flock to the area to enjoy a number of events taking place along a section of waterfront stretching from Fort Point south of the bridge to Pier 39 along The Embarcadero.
At least several thousand people had gathered along the waterfront by Sunday afternoon, said Mary Currie, public affairs director for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.
“Everyone is biking and walking and looks very happy,” she said. “We’re off to a great start.”
San Francisco resident Daniel Sutphin and his family were among those in the crowd enjoying the day and the views of the bridge.
“It’s such an iconic structure, depending on the day or the hour, it just looks like it changes continuously,” Sutphin said as he walked through the Fort Point area with his wife and their three young children.
Since it opened in 1937, more than two-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.
Because of the crowds expected and with no parking available near the bridge, officials were urging people to take mass transit to the events.
The California Highway Patrol was planning on shutting down traffic across the bridge from 9 p.m. through 10 p.m. for a monumental fireworks display set to take place over the bridge.
In a stark contrast to the thousands of celebrants, members of the group the Bridge Rail Foundation, an organization dedicated to stopping suicide jumps from the bridge, erected a display of 1,558 pairs of shoes, representing the number of people who died in leaps form the bridge since it opened in 1937.
“It’s a symbol of how deep and serious this problem has been,” said Paul Muller, a spokesman for the group. “We’re still losing 30 to 35 a people a year off the bridge,” he said.
Meanwhile on the water, Golden Gate ferries were running again after a one-day strike disrupted service across San Francisco Bay on Saturday.
Workers represented by the Inlandboatmen’s Union walked off the job on a day strike, forcing the cancellation of ferries operated by Golden Gate between Larkspur, Sausalito and San Francisco.
The strike was called after nearly a year of negotiations over workloads and other matters, said Marina Secchitano, the union’s regional director.
California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a statement Saturday evening, saying that he was appointing a board to investigate the strike, which, he claimed, created a disruption to public service.
Secchitano disputed the governor’s claim, questioning the motivation to call for an investigation after a one-day strike. “(This is) an action to try to silence us,” she said.
“They’re counting on this process to back our membership off the issue,” she said.
Ferry and union officials said service resumed Sunday when workers returned to work.
