the viaduct, again

[solarbird]

For some reason, the demolition crews have cleaned up four of the support frames from the viaduct, closest to the tracks, and they look so different, when they're very light grey, almost white, instead of the oil-stained deep grey we've always known.

Did the viaduct all look like that, new?

I can't help think how different an impression it would've made, then - all light, but strong, almost marble, strewn along the dirty brick of the old industrial waterfront, a row of columns, shiny, and bright - not the wall it became, but an entryway, the entire city a Greek temple. A stripe of tomorrow slicing through the city, sure, but also, a piece of yesterday, of fiction, of mythology, a slice of Gondor itself slipped into the grey mists of Seattle, an entry gate and buttress both, lifting, strengthening, elevating everything, everything that touched it, saying come, travellers - welcome to Seattle. We are the future.

I wonder how long it took to decay.

Comments

[sistawendy]

I remember the viaduct looking kind of grody as soon as I arrived thirty years ago. Given that catalytic converters weren't required until about '79, it probably decayed PDQ.

I have to say, it's been fascinating watching the crews munching away at the Seneca St. off-ramp. It's going faster than I would have predicted. And then into the Battery St. tunnel it goes, after a suitable crushing. I can't wait for them to finish the former north tunnel entrance. They've filled the last of the entry outside the tunnel, poured a majority of the concrete, and regraded what was the sidewalk and curb.

[solarbird]

Oh, it's been like this forever for me, too. And I'm sure it took no longer than a year.

But it's neat to imagine, isn't it? It wasn't always that.

I watched them do the Cherry Street ramp via traffic cameras, and have caught a little of Seneca, and, of course, a lot of the main chunk.

So the north end of the tunnel is completely filled? I didn't know that. There's a 'construction camera' for that section, but it's really just a traffic cam and you don't get to see the actual tunnel entrance. I'm really looking forward to all those streets being reconnected for the first time since the 50s. But it's going to take, iirc, well into 2020 before all that's done.

What takes long and what doesn't is always so odd.

[redsixwing]

Your prose is gorgeous, and what a thing to see in its newness.

You might get to see, how long. I don't know how long OxBlue leaves their cameras up, but if you can find an intersection camera or something that sees them, it might be fun to check on occasion.

[solarbird]

Thank you~~ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ ♥

There won't be time, I don't think - they're all coming down in the next couple of months. Besides, the traffic - in particular, the pre-catalytic-converter traffic - simply isn't there and thankfully isn't going to be.

[redsixwing]

Ah! Well, then.

Good point, about the catalytic converters. (And that's something I am going to think on more, having forgotten again that smog used to be so much worse.)

[kathmandu]

I watched some movies from the 70s recently, shot on location in southern California, and wow, the smog! So gray and dim compared to the very same areas in movies from the 90s and 2000s!