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Archive for November, 2021

Detroit’s Third Street Bridge 1955-2021

November 30, 2021

This bridge was an important part of my life. It was my passageway to Wayne State, the Cass Corridor, the Cultural Center and downtown Detroit. Now it’s gone and will not be rebuilt. When the new freeway bridge on Second Street is finished, things will be slightly better. Until then, many people are inconvenienced. Once again, the car and truck win out over the pedestrian, the bus and the bicycle.

*The Third Street Bridge, the Fisher Building can be seen here.*

*The Third Street Bridge, looking the other way, toward Wayne State University.*

This bridge was first built in 1954 and opened in 1955. In 1996, they did some major renovations. I thought that they worked on it in 2005 as well but I may be wrong about that. In late 2017 it was closed to car and bus traffic. This forced the bus drivers to do a complicated detour. The primary route that used the bridge was the Hamilton bus.

*One of the last people to cross the bridge by bicycle, on Friday November 12th.*

*Two of the last people to cross the bridge, on Friday November 12th*.

They had several big piles of dirt at hand. These two photos are also facing toward Wayne State University.

*The vibration monitoring device is in the lower left hand side of this photo.*

*A close-up of the vibration monitoring device.*

This device was used to make sure that the vibrations didn’t get to be strong enough to damage nearby houses. It seems to have helped to improve the situation. Some things need to be monitored.

*A warning for the homeless people who lived under the bridge.*

The demolition crew were concerned about the people living under the bridge. I’m sure that the crew went and looked to make sure that the homeless residents had all left. Those of us living in buildings on nearby Fourth and Third streets were not warned at all. Some of us knew that the bridge was going to come down eventually. I thought that it was scheduled for demolition in 2022.

If my neighbors and I hadn’t done some independent investigation, we might not have known about it until the very last minute. I think that some of my neighbors didn’t realize that it was being dismantled until the noise started. People were startled and dismayed by five to ten hours of very loud crashing, pounding sounds and vibrations.

The last time that the bridge was worked on, probably in 1996, my house shook so much that my LPs on my turntable were skipping! Part of my ceiling came down. The destruction crew seemed to have lessened the overall “earthquake effect” some, yet the whole process was very unpleasant. I was glad that I wasn’t home most of the time.

Friday night was an ordeal. It was rough trying to sleep through such a loud destruction process. I tried to convince myself that it was a sort of horrible music, either industrial noise music or music concrete. It was a roughhouse lullaby, that’s for sure.

*A Bronze plaque with the serial number and construction details of the bridge, 1954.*

I took a few photos on Sunday and Monday mornings. on my way out. On Monday, I talked a bit with one of the workers. He was hauling away debris and doing other finishing touches. He seemed surprised that no one had given us the heads up. The workers had known about it for many months. The job was on the docket.

*Part of the lighting system that was used in order to be able to work at night*

*Sunday, November 14th. The bridge is no longer there.* *Visible: a CAT excavator used to take down the bridge.*

*Sunday, November 14th.* *Visible: part of an excavator used to take down the bridge.*

*Monday, November 15th.* *This is a hammer attachment which was used to take the bridge down*.

This whole exercise is an unpleasant example of the glorification of the freeway and the automobile. I’ve never had car in my life. I’ve always walked and rode public transit. Sometimes I’ve bicycled. I’ve had many rides in cars with friends and family.

I can’t take the Linwood bus home from work anymore. It was enough to walk from Trumbull to Third and then to cross the bridge home. That was doable. It’s too much walk from Trumbull to Cass and to have to circle back to Third and Antoinette again, especially with the Winter weather. It’s the Dexter bus or nothing. This is but one example of the complications connected with the missing bridge.

This has hit me right in my backyard, a block away from my house. When the Second Street bridge is completed, the situation will be more tolerable. For now, it’s impossible and is an extreme inconvenience.