urban texture

Broadway Bridge

The Broadway is a double-leaf bascule bridge, a design that dates back to Roman times. It was the largest bridge of its type when completed in 1913, just a year after the Steel Bridge.



The wikipedia article has good illustrations of the bascule design and some history of the Broadway Bridge.

On the water

My Zorki 2-C performed flawlessly on the Portland trip; it's a favorite among my FSU cameras. The pictures from the boat were all with the Industar 22 lens.









I would have done more pictures with the Zorki, but I forgot to put my scissors in the camera bag and had no way to trim the film leader.

The Fremont Bridge

"The Fremont Bridge is a steel tied arch bridge over the Willamette River located in Portland, Oregon. It carries Interstate 405 and US 30 traffic between downtown and North Portland where it intersects with I-5. It has the longest main span of any bridge in Oregon and is the second longest tied arch bridge in the world (after Caiyuanba Bridge across the Yangtze River, China)." wikipedia



Peregrine falcons have been using the bridge structure as a nest site since 1994.



A crew was working at the west end of the bridge where I was taking pictures. One of the workers asked me if I had heard that the area was over-due for a big quake, and that the city's bridges would not likely survive the event. He seemed to be experiencing some genuine anxiety over the prospect.



Sure enough:

"Scientists and geologists said Portland is not ready for a massive 9.0 earthquake and our bridges would likely collapse. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is one of the most dangerous fault lines in the United States, running 600 miles long from northern California, along the Oregon and Washington coast, into Canada. Scientists didn't know it was there until the 1980s..." http://www.koinlocal6.com

There were three reader comments at the end of the article, all of them moronic.

Good luck, Portland.

The Steel Bridge

Completed in 1912, the Steel Bridge crosses the Willamette to Portland's city center. Counterweights in the towers raise the center section to allow passage of boats.







The camera for these shots was one of my frequent travel companions, the Ikonta A 520.