One doesn't immediately associate Los Angeles with bridges, as one would with New York or Paris. Yet, the City of Angels has its share of bridges, and some of them have a certain beauty. They've become familiar, if not precisely identifiable, over the years, thanks to their use in motion pictures and television commercials. A case in point is LA's 1st Street Bridge, a portal between wealthy downtown Los Angeles and the city's poor, predominantly Mexican east side.
For the past three years, this bridge to somewhere has undergone significant and needed repair, including addition of light rail tracks. This week, the 1st Street Bridge was reopened.
Today's online editions of the Los Angeles Times noted the bridge's background, its role in LA's social development, and the structure's graceful attributes.
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6th Street Viaduct
(Photo from bridgehunter.com) |
What's equally interesting is the
photo gallery associated with the 1st Street Bridge article. Times photographers contributed some useful shots of various bridges over the Los Angeles River and railroad tracks that parallel the stream's bleak flood walls. Some of the depicted ornamental work shows a desire for attractive detail that puts our time to shame. One structure --
the iconic 6th Street Viaduct -- demonstrates a delightful visual command of arched space and linear elegance. Another photo shows a scale model of a future bridge which uses the currently popular vernacular of cables and central anchoring.
All in all, the ensemble explored in the
Times' photo essay demonstrates how functional structures in unattractive environments can be exploited to deliver beauty and even pleasure.
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