Golden Gate Bridge to a site near the bridge. In May 1987, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration, the Golden Gate Bridge district again closed the bridge to automobile traffic and allowed pedestrians to cross the bridge. However, this celebration attracted 750,000 to 1,000,000 people, and ineffective crowd control meant the bridge became congested with roughly 300,000 people, causing the center span of the bridge to flatten out under the weight. Although the bridge is designed to flex in that way under heavy loads, and was estimated not to have exceeded 40% of the yielding stress of the suspension cables, bridge officials
Suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge his co-workers he was leaving briefly to get coffee. Rather than doing so, he drove to the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge, parked, and jumped. Four days later, Gallagher's 24-year-old son, Charles S. Gallagher Jr., drove the same sedan owned by his father to the same area and jumped from approximately the same location. A pre-med student at UCLA, Gallagher, Jr. left a note that said, "I am sorry. . . . I want to keep dad company." Twenty-eight-year-old Marc Salinger, oldest son of former Kennedy Administration press secretary Pierre Salinger, jumped to his death from the bridge