Quote:
Originally Posted by BUILDER5000
I didn't have much time to snap this photo the other day as i was driving but as you can see steel has almost reached ground on center city side of the water
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Beams are going up on the South Street Bridge.
A lot of ado has been made about the essentially highway-girder quality of the bridge's substructure (particularly since the previous structure was a re-purposed 1920s drawbridge). However, any look at photographs of the substructure of the late South Street Bridge will show that the same kind of girder beams were used there, too.
http://ruins.wordpress.com/2009/01/2...rst-last-time/
What does this mean? Although a better bridge, aesthetically, would have been
nice, there's no particularly compelling reason (due to siting or history) to really sit up and
demand the better bridge--yet. Once the South Street Bridge is done, the Streets Department will have to turn its focus to a number of other '50s-era deteriorating Schuylkill River spans, including two that really should be flagship bridges: Chestnut Street--whose new design will need to
strongly evoke the Kneass bridge to be successful--and the Spring Garden/MLK Drive complex, where the intricate maze of pilings, pierings, history, and just plain old unique siting are positively
asking for the Hand of Calatrava (including the fact that such a bridge would be a showpiece sculpture for the Art Museum as well).