Friday marked the 32nd anniversary of the walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, an event The Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub once referred to as "the largest clusterf— in Bay Area history where no one actually died."

The May 24, 1987 event celebrating the bridge's 50th anniversary was organized by the "Friends of the Golden Gate Bridge," a group made up of five members of the bridge district board of directors. The group expected a crowd of 80,000 people, but instead received an estimated 800,000 people at the event.

Approximately 300,000 people actually engaged in the walk across the bridge, an experience that — in the most generous terms — could be described as "extremely unpleasant."

"While trapped shoulder to shoulder in the mob, unable to move for more than two hours, I remember discussing with my wife the real possibility that we were about to participate in one of the 20th century's landmark disasters," San Francisco painting and plastering contractor Winston Montgomery recounted 10 years after the event. "A bridge collapse would have put to shame all those petty Third World bus and ferry tragedies you read about in the newspaper."

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The weight of the 300,000 people flattened the normally arched roadbed, although bridge engineers later said there was never any real danger.

"The Golden Gate Bridge, all 419,000 tons of it, groaned and swayed like an old wooden plank thrown across a ditch," Montgomery wrote. "Frightened and seasick people vomited on their shoes."

According to Montgomery, people began throwing bicycles and strollers off the bridge in order to lighten the load on the bridge.

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"There were cheers as some people started to hurl bicycles over the railing," he wrote. "A stroller tumbled down and sank beneath the waves 220 feet below. 'Throw the baby, too,' people yelled, laughing. These were probably the bridge walkers trapped on the sidewalk of a roadbed 95 feet wide, with only a 4-foot railing between them and eternity."

While there were some injuries, there were no fatalities and the bridge was not damaged.

Click through the slideshow above to see photos of the 1987 walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Eric Ting is an SFGATE staff writer. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting

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