So, They're Gonna Light Up the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Arch for the Super Bowl After All

By Robert Wilonsky Sat., Jan. 29 2011 at 10:02 AM

Categories: City Hall

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Sam took this photo of the Calatrava bridge earlier this week; it's part of a larger collection we'll get to, oh, tomorrow maybe? Till then, this announcement: On the other side you'll find a memo City Manager Mary Suhm sent to the city council yesterday in which she announces that, sure enough, they're going to illuminate Margaret Hunt Hill's arch Monday with a special switch-flippin' at 6:25 p.m. pronto.

Says Suhm, the effort's being paid for by the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Trinity Commons Foundation, The Trinity Trust Foundation, North Central Texas Council of Governments and Downtown Dallas, Inc. The council and press folk will gather at the Belmont Hotel, behind Smoke, where I've been known to get lit while eating a super bowl of cheese grits on more than one occasion.

Margaret Hunt Hill Lighting Memo

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I've watched, with some mild interest, the construction of what I call the Dallas Phallus which reaches out to the sky on the latest "bridge to nowhere" project. This "sculpture", of what one might imagine to appear as an uncircumcised penis, is now being festooned with some odd looking "string art". What I find a tad ironic is that the inmates in the Dallas County Jail, get a very close-view of this oddity while being retained in cells that were designed for 3 prisoner but now house 7. I realize I have a very unusual slant on this whole matter but thought it was worth voicing my opinion.
Spotlighting fake boobs, I mean bridges, it don't get more Dallas than that!
What a friggin' boondoggle. We can't fill the potholes, keep a decent animal shelter, pay our cops or teachers, but this monumental tribute to rich socialites is a priority? Gimme a break. Why are we building a suspension bridge across flat, dry ground? Dallas, you fail. You just... fail.
I Shutze suicidal yet?....
So I have to admit, driving down 35 last night, the arch, bathed in blue light, actually looked kind of cool. Not in a "Man, that's going to be a bad-ass bridge" sort of cool. More like a "hey, let's go bungee jump off that cool blue arch" sort of way.
Let's hope she can get them all to blink in sequence.
If we keep it dark until it actually goes somewhere, it'll be dark until the next ice age.
Suhm is mindful of the budget. She got a shitload of icicle lights on after xmas clearance. They're gonna do it up nice.
I guess we'll find out on Monday, but I wonder if this will be a couple of cheap spotlights you can rent for any special event, or something a little nicer. Either way, how will this be different than the permanent lighting, if any, the bridge will have?
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o263/Daneelo/Occasional%20Train%20Blogging/HS2008/Mi-Bo_CalatravaN.jpg If it looks like that, it will be a refreshing design change to the boring brick and faux concrete facades we see around here all the time.
Yet we can't fund money to operate existing fountains for the benefit of ordinary citizens.
I will also be illuminating my fleet of solar powered water taxis as we embark on a cocaine fueled evening of fun with my cocaine and fake boob friends
But seriously, folks, the bridge looks like a demented Erector set right now. We should keep it dark until it is completed AND it actually goes some where! We just came in under the Golden Gate Bridge in early morning from the South Pacific. Now there's a bridge that looks beautiful lighted! Lest you think I am demented too, we had bridge like this in Milwaukee. From Wickipedia: "Hoan Bridge (built 1973), a 3 km road bridge over the Milwaukee River in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which was unused until access roads were completed in 1977, was lacking freeway connections at the southern end until 1998, and was "going nowhere again" for two months while closed for major repairs after a span partially collapsed in December 2000." It was a lovely bridge and Lake Michigan could be seen through the bridge so it had a beautiful vista. It actually stopped in the middle of close knit neighborhood with small city streets. It was built without discussion with the State Toll Road system. Go Packers!
Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Light something that's, oh I don't know, actually a completed structure. *V8 smack to the head*
Most likely, the out-of-towners will be so lit up themselves they won't notice they're in an empty unbuilt hotel or driving towards a bridge to nowhere from nowhere.
Great, now in addition to being a fake suspension bridge, it will be lit up as if it was a functional bridge to confuse the out-of-towners as they attempt to cross it. This will be their second mistake after first walking from the convention center to the new convention center hotel which is probably also lit up.
I think a better idea would be to put a huge sheet over it and pretend it's not there.
Maybe we can get Federal funding to run a street car across it to two blocks short of Ray's.
Once they string the stringy things, it'll be a world class imitation lookalike of a real suspension bridge, a la San Francisco or Brooklyn, without the engineering, style, or history.
I know that bridge is supposed to be something special but I don't get it.