Saturday, December 1, 2007

Zakim Bridge



In honor of today's daily photo theme being bridges, we thought we'd post a photo of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge. Lenny Zakim was an American religious and civil rights leader, and since he was known for "building bridges" between Boston's racial and ethnic communities it seemed only natural that an actual bridge be named after him. The bridge opened to traffic in 2003 and since that was before I lived here, I asked Sarah if she had any local knowledge of it...

"The first winter after it opened they discovered the flaw in the design—snow/ice froze on the suspension wires and then when it got warm and started to melt, chunks came crashing down on to cars. I can't remember details, but I remember there being a few accidents. I don't know if the chunks actually broke windshields or damaged the cars themselves, but it scared the bejesus out of people when big chunks of melting ice crashed onto their cars and caused accidents that way even if there was no damage."


There are currently 128 City Daily Photo blogs participating in today's Theme Day:

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11 comments:

Gwen said...

Very sculptural bridge design.

WichitaKsDailyPhoto said...

The water glimmers in this photo, and the cables put me in mind of pyramids. I can see how the designers of the bridge failed to think about falling ice causing problems. But, they regretted finding out the hard way.

Joy said...

I like your photo! I like the way the water sparkle and the bridge in the background as if hovering over everything.

joy
Norwich Daily Photo
The Goddess In You
Your Love Coach

Ben Nakagawa said...

Those suspended design is very common in the world, isn't it?
But still, it's good to look at and you have taken this beautifully.

Kerry-Anne said...

Interesting post! I'm sure there was quite an outcry when the "design flaw" was discovered. :-)

Gerald (SK14) said...

an excellent addition to the theme

Felicia said...

That is a beautiful bridge, its design kind of echos the look of the sailboats.

Chandlermom said...

Very modern looking; looks like it was a nice day!

Anonymous said...

Great bridge, fantastic picture! It never would have occurred to me about the falling ice--one more reason it's a good thing I take pictures of bridges rather than design them! :)

Michelle
http://arlingtondailyphoto.com/photoblog

Sally said...

This looks very like Sydney's Anzac Bridge. http://sydneydailyphotoextra.blogspot.com/2007/07/anzac-bridge.html

Neva said...

I am pretty sure that I would never cross that bridge again if a hunk of ice came down on me! hope they got that fixed!