The day in walk: Bridges 2: winter riverfront
January 17, 2011
Today I was supposed to pick someone and follow them for a while, reporting on where they went. Well, I followed Old Man River and he went south, to New Orleans.
I was going to take pictures of the river (the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis)—the river itself—but it didn’t take long at all for my focus to shift to the bridges. The river is present in a few of the shots, but once again the underneaths of the bridges are the stars. Maybe you remember when I did that last summer on a bike ride.
Ah, summer.
The difference between last summer’s bike ride and today’s walk is, oh, I don’t know, about 70°F/21°C. I didn’t look today, but it was about 15°F/-9°C, based on the forecast high. But being a hardy Minnesotan, I bundled up and went for a nice walk.
So.
1. Hennepin Avenue Bridge (historic). Underneath the bridge, behind where I stood to take my photo, are a couple of pylons from the original version of this bridge built in the mid-1800s. I think the current bridge is the third or fourth version. Oh. According to Wikipedia, this bridge was the first permanent one across the Mississippi River. How about that?
2. 3rd Avenue Bridge (secret passage). Just a bit east (the whole walk wasn’t even two miles), is a more modern-looking, but quite older bridge. This one was an odd duck because it has beautiful arches when viewed from a distance. But when you’re standing directly underneath it, all you see are two doorways like the one in this photo. It looked like it went through three parallel walls. Weird. I was sort of disappointed there wasn’t a drawbridge or something.
3. Mill Ruins Park. Okay, so it’s not a bridge, it’s the riverfront ruins of abandoned flour mills. There is running and dripping water everywhere. The icicle mass was cool. There also seemed to be a model photoshoot going on. The models were not modeling outerwear. Silly catalogs.
4. Stone Arch Bridge (arches). This is the bridge that might possibly have some notoriety outside the Twin Cities. It used to be a railway bridge. Now, it is for pedestrians and bicyclists. It’s stoney and archy and neat. It’s at the foot of the St. Anthony Lock & Dam, which I believe is the first lock and dam on the Mississippi. The first in sequence, I mean. I don’t know if it was the first constructed.
5. I-35W Bridge (strong). This is the sturdy replacement for the bridge that collapsed in 2007. From the side you see graceful arched spans, and from underneath you see these stout legs. I live in the neighborhood. I was outside puttering with my tomato plants when the old bridge collapsed. I heard the sirens and figured there was a big accident on I-94, which is also near my home. It’s still weird to interact with the new bridge.
6. 10th Avenue Bridge (industrial). It’s also weird to be underneath this bridge, just a couple blocks downstream from the 35W Bridge. This photo doesn’t show it, but this bridge looks old and tired from below. The roadbed on top is all spiffy, but it’s a little creepy to look at the chipping concrete when you know what happened to its neighbor three years ago.
Photos were taken with the assistance of my new friend, Instagram, and the Inkwell filter. (Except for the first one of me, that is. I did that in Photoshop.)
Irrational fear of ???
December 17, 2010
I fear nothing. I used to be terribly afraid of spiders, but then I started living with centipedes. Spiders ain’t nothin’ anymore! There are things that make me uncomfortable, from vaguely to quite, but I’m certain I don’t have any out and out phobias.
The first thing that comes to mind is looking down on water from a high bridge. I’m not afraid of heights and I’m not afraid of water. But when I look over the railing at wide, moving water, I kind of get the creeps.
In particular, I don’t like the Ford Bridge on 46th Street in south Minneapolis that spans the Mississippi River. Twenty-two years ago when I lived here the first time, I lived in a dorm, and that gave me easy access to the bike trails along the Mighty Mississippi. I’d ride down one side and come back on the other. The Ford Bridge was the last convenient crossing, so I used it a lot. I don’t know how my discomfort got started. I theorize that it might have developed on those occasions when I stopped to watch the river. I find moving water, whether it’s a river or the sea, to be hypnotic. But a road bridge vibrates with each passing vehicles, and maybe it was the shakiness combined with not being able to see the floor of the river and imagining how deep it was that got to me. Who knows. But eventually I ceased stopping because I didn’t want to be drawn into contemplating the bottom of the river. Most of the time on other bridges, such as the Hennepin Avenue Bridge in downtown Minneapolis (pictured above, and also spanning the Mississippi Rive), this sensation isn’t as pronounced and if can I keep myself from thinking about it, I can enjoy watching the water flow.
The other thing that makes me nervous is escalators in a crowd. I know exactly the reason behind this one. Six or seven years ago, I went to a baseball game in the old Yankee Stadium and our seats were in the upper deck. We joined the throng of people in gliding up one of the escalators that was available. Only, whether it was because the people already upstairs were blocking the way or because our fellow riders didn’t know which way to go, a bit of a pile-up occurred at the top of the escalator. Many people before us simply stopped immediately upon disembarking and the next thing I knew, the escalator was still moving but there was nowhere to go and we were getting pushed into the people ahead of us and the people behind us were getting fed into us. It was very panic-inducing.
So now, if I have to make an escalator journey in a mass of people, I leave an abnormally large amount of space between me and the people ahead of me. And if I can avoid the escalator altogether in that kind of situation, I will. I’m very glad the new home of the Minnesota Twins, Target Field, has old-fashioned walking ramps and easy access to stairs. I have noticed, though, that there are ushers at the ends of the escalators helping people to keep moving, but a lot of the time, I will take the ramps or the stairs.
The day in bike ride: September 4, 2010: Bridges
September 5, 2010
I only intended to go to the Mill City Farmers Market to get something to eat from Chef Shack. I did, and then on my way back, I got a sudden bee in my bonnet to just go on a little bike ride. So I did. And paid attention to the undersides of bridges.
These are all bridges over the Mississippi River between St. Anthony Falls Lock & Dam and Lock & Dam No. 1. There are three not pictured because I didn’t get the idea right away.
Bridge to nourishment: bacon beer brat from Chef Shack.
Photo 1: 10th Avenue
Photo 2: Remains of the I-35W bridge that collapsed in 2007 are still spread out on the Bohemian Flats near the University of Minnesota.
Photo 3: I-94
Photo 4: Franklin Avenue
Photo 5: Railroad bridge between 26th and 27th Streets . I would seriously doubt that it’s still used for train traffic.
Photo 6: Bridge to hydration
Photo 7: Lake Street
Photo 8: 46th Street. This one seemed quite cathedral-like to me as I stood under it.
Photos 9–12: Bridge on the Mississippi: Lock & Dam No. 1. I had a little staycation with this as I hadn’t realized that you can walk all around the facility. There is a catwalk that bridges the two locks (it seems only the 9-footer is used), and then it’s quite parklike on the dividers between the various channels.
Photo 9: Bridge to observation, catwalk
Photo 10: The 6-foot lock, which doesn’t seem to have been used any time recently, as there were some quite large shrubs growing in the far end of it on the wall.
Photo 11: Bridge to dinner, if you’re a spider.
Finally, I leave you with this video of the dam’s waterfall. That’s a blue heron flying around. There were also white herons, ducks, and geese.
There were more bridges on the second half of my ride, but unfortunately, my battery died while I was enjoying the Lock & Dam. Maybe I’ll go out again this weekend to capture those.
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