IMPERMANENCE

All things must pass, but how long they last depends, to some extent, on how they are cared for. Consider human bodies. The old warehouse on the riverfront that burned over the weekend had become useless and was abandoned. The surrounding area was old and industrial, lacking a reason to rehab it. The right background is our newest bridge across the Mississippi. How long will it stand? Our oldest bridge is 150 years old and still very much in use.            

THE BRIDGE TO PICNIC ISLAND

The designers of Forest Park, when laying out the waterways, created an idyllic island, now known as Picnic Island. It is a little walk from the nearest parking and the entry bridge isn't evident from the street, so it is never crowded. In fact, it is quite peaceful. There are only a few actual picnic tables. It's more of a spread a blanket out on the grass type of place, one of our town's hidden gems.          

STL DPB STILL WITH ITS HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

Back home early from CR with family medical issues to deal with so need a few more pix from our brief trip. The bridge system across the ravines of the cloud forest are marvels of engineering. This one looks like it disappears into the foliage but the trail continues.

There are things to note this week, today is Pi Day to some people (3/14) and 314 Day in St. Louis, the number being the principle telephone area code. And Friday is a day of great note in this household, more about which later.              

STL DPB IN THE CANOPY, PART 2

It's 3:45 AM daylight savings time, which just kicked in, in St. Louis. Transferring from international to domestic in American Airlines Miami hub is a horror. Don't do it unless you have a really long connecting time. So we're just getting to bed.

This is one of eight suspension bridges over various gorges on the canopy walk we took. We chatted with this woman who is Swiss and touring Costa Rica by herself. She said she likes to have her own space.    

A SIMPLE BRIDGE

There was a more distant view of this bridge to the tea house in Sunday's post. The craftsmanship is beautiful, joinery rather than nails. The up hill part feels a bit steep to old legs. It's representative of what we saw in gardens during our visits to Japan.                

WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT CABLES?

From big bridges to shoelaces to the fiber optic line that will carry this post into the ether, we don't think about cables much. Even the heavy ropes seen yesterday are examples, and the rope-maker's art is ancient. We can even think of the tendons in our bodies. Without them, as Yeats said, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. So thank a cable. Do it today.

This is the lyrically-named Stan Musial - Veterans Memorial Bridge, connecting Missouri and Illinois at the north edge of downtown.     

RAILROAD ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI

There is some complicated theory about why Chicago, rather than St. Louis, became the railroad hub of the Midwest US. We are more central but, if nothing else, Chicago doesn't have that big river in the way.

This is an old, big rail bridge across the Mississippi. It is on the southern edge of downtown with three hard arches crossing the river. I don't know what the boxy, blank building on the right used to be, or how someone hung out that window to paint a simplified face. Must have had some cliff climbing skills.       

Big Sky Country

I was driving around the riverfront late Saturday afternoon looking for something to shoot. The light was very nice. That's the graffiti-permitted section of the floodwall in the foreground and an old railroad bridge that seems to be supporting a big cumulus cloud. Not many of them around in late autumn. I think of them as summer clouds.        

Could Have Been 10

When starting to plan the tenth anniversary post, I drove around looking for something with that number. (Damn, It just occurred to me. I should have gone to a bowling alley.)  Roman numerals would work but where could I find a large, isolated X? These are the iron girders of the old railroad bridge across the Mississippi just south of downtown.     

Urban Grit And Transportation

Pick your destination and method of transport. From the lonely industrial area south of the Arch I like to shoot so much.           

Power & Light

Black and white week continues:

A little north of the Arch by the Mississippi sits the old Union Power & Light plant, St. Louis' original electrical generating station. The classical architecture contrasts sharply with the industrial equipment jutting out of it and the new bridge to the right.

The generators within powered the lights at The Palace of Electricity at the 1904 World's Fair here. As best I can tell from research it still produces something, although I see very few workers' cars when I walk around it.                       
                       

New Bridge On The Mississippi

For a several decades, STL has had one main bridge that carried the Interstate highways (55, 64 and 70) across the Mississippi. It's choked with traffic at rush hour and always seems to be under repair. A couple of other old bridges were essentially extensions of the city streets. It was time for more capacity.

Thus, the brand-new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge, just for I 70 and another means of access to downtown. It's a wonder the thing got built. Illinois wanted a toll bridge with many more lanes. Missouri, a low-tax, low-service state, insisted it be free and who cares if it's wide enough. Since the men and women of the armed services are held in high esteem these days (it wasn't always so - think Vietnam), Illinois wanted to call it the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Cardinal-worshiping Missouri wanted to name it the Stan Musial Bridge, after the greatest god in the team pantheon, who died last year. Hence, the compromise, with a name that falls liltingly off the tongue and probably has too few lanes (just two in each direction).

The public was invited to wander around on it yesterday afternoon. Many big-shot politicians showed up, including some I actually like. Cars may travel on it today. It is handsome. I hear the night lighting is fabulous. Much of it is visible from my office window so we'll get that later.

So, we will have several days of architecture, crowds, politicos, signage and barge traffic on the ice-filled Mississippi.                         

The Lonliness Of The Rail Yard

Okay, it's completely corny and it's the wrong state but what I can't get out of my head as I write this post is the old Waylon Jennings song:

Between Hank Williams' pain songs and
Newberry's train songs and Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain
Out in Luckenbach, Texas ain't nobody feelin' no pain
 

I haven't heard a train song in a long time. Train pictures, though, are always at hand. The graffiti-permitted floodwall faces the yard in the first two pictures.  The ironwork in the bottom shot forms part of the base of a railroad-only bridge that crosses the Mississippi closer to the Arch.The monument is in the background somewhere but you can't see it in the mist.

Something different to shoot today: a brand new bridge across the big river. It's open to pedestrians today and cars tomorrow. Pix on Sunday morning.               

Something New

The bridges over the Mississippi at St. Louis are very crowded. There are two very old ones and another that's more modern but has been around for many decades. We need a stent in our arteries.

A new river crossing is nearing completion just north of downtown. The decision was a tussle between the two states it will serve. Illinois, being more liberal and interested in public works (although it's now in considerable financial trouble) wanted to have at least three lanes in each direction and to charge a toll. Missouri, ever the cheapskate, refused to consider tolls. So we're getting two lanes in each direction, which is inadequate. It's amazing the bridge got started. The two states have had so many disagreements that the structure doesn't even have a name yet, although it's not far from opening.

We're in Washington. Pix starting tomorrow.         

Trains Across The Mississippi

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More HDR. It visual drama seems to fit the subject. I shot this standing near the edge of the river looking back west at the city. No idea how old this bridge is but it carries heavy freight across the Mississippi all day long.

WHAT I RIPPED ONTO MY IPOD: a Christmas gift from my wife, Glass Box, a 10 CD survey of the career of composer Philip Glass. Note the Chuck Close portrait on the link to the set on Amazon. In 1984, my wife and I attended a performance of Glass' first opera, Einstein On the Beach, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It approached six hours long, with the audience invited to wander in and out at will. It was a day that rearranged my neurons and sent me in a new direction. Here's a sample.

TOMORROW: next cruise.