I know the location where the incident happened almost a century ago, having walked and motored across it innumerable times spanning almost two decades.
I responded and thanked him with this observation:
It's amazing how the world changes around us, especially when we're not watching, but sometimes even if we are. Sometimes the changes are welcome -- I get to wear skirts, for instance -- and sometimes they're not. Sometimes it's a mixed bag. However, for the most part, we're pretty powerless to stop it, so we have to learn to roll with the punches and surf the good waves.Wow. Thanks for that; it was a good read and a nice diversion from domestic chores.
It's got a few factual errors in it, but that's to be expected; for instance, the original bridge no longer spans the Fort Point Channel, but instead a some-time replica that retains some of the characteristics of the original which are only cosmetic and the span cannot open the way it once did. You and I recall the replacement being built during our time at SWEC [Stone & Webster Engineering Company].
The entire locale is only vaguely recognisable today from what it was like just a couple of decades ago. Gone now is one of the most amazing displays of various moveable-span bridges ever assembled over such a short waterway, as are the street-car tracks, although every once in a while enough tarmac would spall off the tracks on the old bridge to be seen by motorists and pedestrians.
We call it progress.
The interesting thing above is that the "new" bridge was an attempt to keep the flavour of the original. Few folks would have thought of that, and a simple deck-girder bridge constructed in place on the old one. But this was an interesting part of the world at the time, and happily someone did. In the span of a few football pitches, once could see almost every type of moveable bridge known to man save for a vertical-lift. The inventory was a center-swing bridge, one highway bascule bridge, a linear "slide" bridge (the one in the article above, and three massive rolling bascule bridges that carried three railway tracks apiece into South Station Terminal. Positioned properly along the channel, one could observe, compare, and contrast all the different designs visually by just turning his head.
The railway bridges are gone now, being replaced by concrete box trestles; the swing bridge is still there, but permanently opened as the mechanical bits haven't worked in 20 years; a new prestressed concrete-box bridge has been thrown across it in another location which by definition cannot move, and the highway bascule bridge is slowly corroding away to dust.
"Progress".
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