5/15/2009

Crossing the '33' - Part III

I noticed the demolition action here a couple weeks ago and stopped by the other day. According to Masten District Councilman Demone Smith's office the 46 year old pedestrian bridge connecting a once vibrant neighborhood just south of Northland Street will be rebuilt in the coming months. No news yet as to the project's cost.
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The other two pedestrian crossings along the '33' connect neighborhoods that are still split. I posted about the first one, connecting Grape and Cherry Streets - see, Crossing the '33' - Part I - in January '07 and the equally bisected neighborhood near High and Gray Streets - Crossing the '33' - Part II - in May '07.
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In the past few months I've become a big fan of Historic Aerials, sort of works like googlemaps. When you drill down you'll notice that the '33' was completed in stages. In the 1958 map - centered on the Science Museum - you'll see that the destruction construction had already begun, closer to downtown. By 1966 most of the '33' was completed between the 198-hourglass and downtown. The section between Best and Ferry Streets was still at-grade. Using one of the site's embedded tools take a moment to compare that 1958 moment with today's existing reality. Staggering.
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While shooting what remains of the pedestrian bridge earlier this week, I noticed a number of houses on the east side of Humboldt Parkway that have been marked for demoltion. I'll be following up on those in the next few weeks.
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click image to enlarge
RIP 2 Girard.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's being rebuilt, 1.2 Million

hope it includes bicycle friendly turn lanes

Eisenbart said...

These pedestrian ramps are really uninviting to... pedestrians. I guess the entire 33 is that way. I had heard that Humboldt was getting a facelift but that was all I remember hearing.

Talk about put lipstick on a pig or what?