Bridge Obsession

I apologize in advance if you were expecting to read something about the card game. Although I do play bridge, it has been years since I last played so one could hardly call it an obsession. Second clue: The picture! So, you might be asking yourself how does one become obsessed with a bridge? It’s a long story, but I’ll make it short.

The picture above is/was the iconic 6th Street bridge in Los Angeles, that crosses over the L.A. River, train tracks and deposits drivers into Boyle Heights. It was built in 1932 but deemed seismically unfit, and in January 2016 the bridge was closed with demolition starting on February 6th to make way for a new bridge. The old bridge has a very storied past. It has been featured in more than 40 films between 1932-2016, countless music videos and television shows, video games, and just about every car commercial ever made! My obsession with this bridge and the one replacing it stems from the fact that I have been living two blocks away from this bridge since 2011. For five years I got to drive over the bridge numerous times, and my nightly walk in the neighborhood takes me right under it. I have watched/seen the demolition of the old bridge and construction of the new one every night for the last six years. It is slated to open in the summer of 2022, three years behind the original completion date, but I have my doubts. The new bridge’s design is called the “ribbon of light.”

Watching the construction of this bridge on a daily/nightly basis, watching the workers and equipment moving about, and the gradual evolution from supporting foundations to the bridge span and arches has certainly fed this obsession. Instead of a time-lapse video, which condenses six years of work into a few minutes, I have watched this unfold in real time! There are many interesting details that I have learned over the years, but the one that stands out in my mind is this: The arches that you see above are made of concrete. There are a total of ten pairs of arches and each one requires 65+ truckloads of concrete to make. This alone might explain the $588 million dollar price tag!