Photo courtesy of PacHD.San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge celebrated its 81st birthday on May 27, 2018, Local SYR reports. The bridge opened to pedestrians on May 27, 1937 and then to vehicles a day later on May 28, 1937. The Golden Gate Bridge reportedly cost approximately $35.5 million to build and actually came in under budget and was completed ahead of schedule.
The famous suspension bridge is 8,981 feet long (1.7 miles), 90 feet wide, weighs a total of 887,000 tons, and contains approximately 88,000 tons of steel. Approximately 80,000 miles of wire are contained within each of the two steel cables. The cables are anchored to two bridge towers spaced 4,200 feet apart that stand 726 feet above the water and 500 feet above street level, and weigh in at 44,000 tons each.
