Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Engineering

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This is the main highway bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis. Its official name is the Bernard F. Dickman Bridge but nobody around here knows a thing about Bernie (mayor of STL in the 30s - I looked it up) and nobody calls it that. Everybody refers to it as the Poplar Street Bridge, for the small street it leaps over as it leaves Missouri. Three Interstate highways cross the river on it. For all that, it looks kind of dull and the ramps and interchanges on both sides are a mess (interesting discussion here). Still, it has a massiveness that suits the river it crosses. Check out those heavy duty shock absorbers between the bridge deck and supporting piers.

TOMORROW:
Thursday Arch Series.

7 comments:

airplane5312 said...

One of my favorite subjects, bridges. Have never seen shock absorbers though. Unless bridge supports are elastomers, which they don't appear to be, those absorbers would only dampen movement along the bridge length. I'll have to ask one of the civil guys at work about that.

cieldequimper said...

Wow, three interstates? That's impressive! I like the photo treatment here a lot.

Virginia said...

I can honestly say I've never been under a bridge like this. Shock absorbers. Who knew!! We go some tostrange places with you lately, B!
V

Paula said...

Since Hurricane Ivan we've had to build a new bridge and some new fishing piers. I love the look of them, they're so essential to our way of life around here.
Finding a good spot to photograph any of them is tricky so it's interesting to see the undercarriage. I've never seen shock absorbers on a bridge.

Nathalie H.D. said...

My first reaction is interest for your photo treatment. There's been a fair bit going on here!I like it but I wish I knew more about how you did it.

Bridges are amazing works of art.

Now for the rest. I feel really angry at myself for not coming for a few days because I missed so many good posts :

- the fantastic "excuse my French" post about Sarkozy (glad Cergie filled you in!)

- the great choice of framings for faces from the Orsay museum - you achieved something quite unique there

- the humorous Paris Thursday arch, loved it

- Faust and the neo-nazi post : ah well, no airy-fairy there but the violent side of life!

- the delightful purple rain that comes as such a welcome delight after the above...

Thanks for all of that.
I wonder what new arch tomorrow will bring....

-K- said...

Many, many years ago I sailed under that bridge. In fact, I sailed under every bridge on the Mississippi River. (I use to be a deckhand on the Delta Queen Steamboat.)

(It's all about me.)

Sally said...

The browns and greys you have managed in these photos are amazing.
Sorry I haven't been commenting much lately - combination of life circumstances. SDP has had a 3rd birthday and you're invited to the party!
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