The twin towers of the Zakim Bridge straddle I-93 in Boston like sleek headless giants. The Bridge is an impressive structure that compels interaction, spurring one to drive it and become part of its stately elegance for at least a few 45 mph(ish) moments. From beside the TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics basketball team, we had a great view of the bridge and its never ending streams of traffic last spring.
Its full and rather unwieldy name, the Leonard P Zakim-Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge, belies its streamlined beauty. The cables that enable the bridge to withstand 400 mph winds and earthquakes of a 7.9 magnitude glow blue and white at night as do the towers that clearly resemble the nearby Bunker Hill memorial. Part of the Big Dig project that included the construction of underground highways and which opened up 300 acres of land, rejoining Boston to its harbor, the bridge is named for Lenny Zakim, a civil rights activist and for the ordinary citizen heroes who fought on Bunker Hill.
I had the fun of driving it on my way in to the Bunker Hill Monument and the Boston Navy Yard one morning last spring. Yeah, I kind of missed my exit, but it was worth it to drive through that network of elegant alabaster cables.
Updated from April 29, 2010.
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