Comments on: Followup: City Council unanimously passes bridge resolution

By: miws

miws — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:30:30 +0000

Scott B, Confirming through West Side Story, the northern bridge, (the span the ship hit ;) ), was the older of the two.

It was dedicated on December 21, 1924. Bridge No. 2, was opened on September 20, 1930.

Mike

By: Scott B.

Scott B. — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:23:02 +0000

The old West Seattle Bridge was two side by side metal spans. One of them was older than the other, but I don’t remember which. The freighter hit the north span, which ended up being stuck in the opened position.

I remember reading an opinion/editorial during construction speculating that the steep gradients and the “low” barriers at the sides of The Bridge would result in cars going off over the side during snow. That seems funny now, but a young woman’s car did go over the side of the Ballard Bridge quite a few years ago.

I’ve always thought The Bridge should be named after Rolf Neslund.

By: WSB

WSB — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:36:11 +0000

Yeah, sorry. Another one of those idiot Californians who flocked up here in the early ’90s. But I was recruited. And we changed our license plates really fast.

By: WSHC

WSHC — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:28:03 +0000

WSB is a transplant?!

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:17:08 +0000

Funny how the city council can name something after someone who has been deceased less than a year but the community cannot have something named after someone who has been deceased less than three years. I guess it is a perk of being an elected official of the city.

By: A

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:15:01 +0000

Completely. Ridiculous.
Whereas City Council is looking for meaningless ways to spend our money; and Whereas it has been a long, summery spring; and Whereas we’d like to “aw shucks welcome in” Rusty Williams before the vote; and Whereas we don’t have anything more important to spend time on; Now Therefore let us purchase overpriced signs and pay twice the going rate to have them installed on the West Seattle Bridge because nobody really cares about a few thousand dollars here and there.
Anybody know of another bridge need namin’? We got time on our hands and money burnin’ holes in our City pockets.

By: miws

miws — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:38:47 +0000

And don’t forget the great pics of the various West Seattle Bridges, from throughout the history of our “town”!

Also, the railroad bridge will turn 100, in 2011!

Mike

By: WSB

WSB — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:19:47 +0000

I never saw the old bridge since I hadn’t visited Seattle before 1988. Was so thrilled to find this in the Municipal Archives (which means they are public property and usable for purposes like these) … there are some cool websites with bridge-construction pix but I’d have had to write somebody for permission and that might have taken a while.

By: JanS

JanS — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:56:38 +0000

it’s so weird to see the old bridge in that picture. I’d almost forgotten what it looked like…great picture..