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Today's adventure takes us back to Cleveland, to the historic Center St. Bridge. I did actually walk across this one and back, on my way to the city's shiny new aquarium. As I've mentioned before, I've always thought swing-span bridges were cool. This one has its central pivot on the west bank of the river rather than in the middle, so as not to obstruct river traffic. Which is important since the Cuyahoga is remarkably narrow given all the shipping traffic it sees. The downside of this is that there's a nice, grassy parklike area on the west bank where the span goes when it pivots out of the way, with a high fence and big signs warning you for god's sake never never go in there, lest you get conked over the head by a bridge. Which would be bad. This seems like reasonable advice to me, really.
Another cool thing about the bridge is that the vastly higher and larger Detroit-Superior Bridge passes directly over it, which makes for some interesting photo opportunities. Which weren't fully exploited this time around as I was busy freezing my fingers off and trying not to drop lenses or lose my phone or that sort of thing.
A few interesting links to pass along about the bridge, mostly of a historical nature:
- HistoricBridges.org
- Cleveland Memory at Cleveland State University.
- A Cleveland Magazine article about historic bridges of the Flats.
- A page about the city's bridges in Case Western Reserve's Encyclopedia of Cleveland.
- Engineering plans for the bridge, also at Case Western Reserve.
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