Washington’s rising Frederick Douglass bridge lifts the human spirit
The new bridge features elegant arches and space for walkers and cyclists to appreciate the waterfront.
By Philip Kennicott,
Matt McClain The Washington Post
Washington is building a bridge, and it isn’t like any bridge the city has built before. If you’ve visited Nationals Park baseball stadium or walked along the waterfront in Anacostia, you’ve probably seen its most distinctive feature: three pairs of giant arches soaring above the Anacostia River. When it opens next spring, it may change the way the city thinks about its rivers and waterfront.
The new bridge is named for Frederick Douglass, a civil rights leader who was born into slavery, escaped and became one of this country’s greatest and most influential writers. The bridge replaces an old one, also named for Douglass, that was one of the ugliest in the city.
What makes a bridge beautiful, or ugly? People have different opinions, just as they do about movies, food and works of art. But many people would say that the most beautiful bridges in Washington include the Arlington Memorial Bridge and the Key Bridge, which cross the Potomac River. Both were built in a traditional way: The road is supported by arches below it. These two bridges are beautiful, because they offer fine views of the city and have been decorated with stone and carvings, and because the shape of their arches reminds people of music, or dance or the motion of a graceful animal.
The old Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge wasn’t that kind of bridge. It was more basic: just a deck for cars placed over heavy supporting structures, known as piers, in the river. It was opened in 1950 when states and cities were building a lot of new roads and bridges and didn’t want to spend extra money to make them beautiful.
Katherine Frey
The Washington Post
Workers walk on top of the arches in August. Cables from the arches will support the road below.
The new bridge uses its arches in a different way. Heavy cables are hung from the high arches, supporting the road below, like the ropes of a swing set hold the seat you sit on. The arches are made of metal, but they are carefully anchored into concrete supports that make it look as though they flow straight up from the river into the sky.
In some cities, especially European cities such as Paris and Prague, the bridges are so beautiful that people go there just to spend time walking on them, just as they might walk in a park. Washington could be that kind of city, if it builds more bridges like the new Frederick Douglass bridge.
People who care about bridges are excited about this new one, because not only is it better-looking than the old one, it also has been better designed for people who want to walk on it or ride a bicycle across it. There will be paths and river views underneath the bridge, as well.
When it is finished, it will help connect the parks along the Anacostia River into a larger green zone that spans both sides of the river. That may mean more people will begin to think of the rivers in Washington as one of the greatest natural features of the city.
More D.C. bridges The Arlington Memorial Bridge may be the most beautiful and beloved bridge in Washington. It took six years to build and was finished in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression. The bridge is one of Washington’s most powerful symbols, connecting the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery. It also connects Washington, the capital of the United States during the Civil War, to Virginia, which broke away from the Union to fight to preserve slavery. When it was built, many people saw it as a symbol of reunification between the North and South, even though African Americans still did not have full civil rights or equality.
The bridge is made of concrete, covered with beautiful granite panels. When it was built, the center arch was a metal drawbridge, allowing large boats to pass through. But the drawbridge permanently closed long ago. The Key Bridge was named for Francis Scott Key, who wrote the words that became the national anthem. It opened in 1923, but it looks much more modern than the Arlington Memorial Bridge. That’s because its concrete arches aren’t covered with stone and decorations. It also uses an open form called a spandrel arch, which doesn’t fill in the space between the round arch shape below and roadway above. The Key Bridge replaced a bridge called the Aqueduct Bridge, which was designed to carry boats. Back when canals were used like railroads are today — to carry freight — a private company built the Aqueduct Bridge to carry the C & O Canal across the Potomac River to a port in Alexandria. You can still visit the old canal in Georgetown, but the famous Aqueduct Bridge is long gone.
More in KidsPost 50-year-old Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was an ‘engineering wonder’ The Erie Canal, started 200 years ago, transformed a young America Panama Canal expands so it’s not left in the past
