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Another crumbling city bridge shut as unsafe

The city has shut the old Northern Avenue Bridge "indefinitely" following a safety inspection that showed it was no longer even safe for pedestrians and bicyclists, according to a memo sent around today to local employers by the Seaport Transportation Management Association.

Walkers and bicyclists now need to take the Moakley Bridge - which was supposed to completely replace the Northern Avenue span - or Summer Street.

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Comments

I know this will get the conserve-at-all-cost crowd all riled up, but that bridge is not just old and dilapidated, its downright ugly. It just distracts from the area that is growing up around it, and generally serves no real purpose. The adjacent Evelyn Moakley Bridge is literally feet away.

I see no purpose in throwing tax payer money into fixing it or trying to just stabilize it.

Let it go already.

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its downright ugly.

I like it. I look at it and I think of the 19th century, and the building out of America's infrastructure, and steel, and workingmen running around with buckets of white hot rivets, and excitement and unlimited promise in the air....

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Why am I having visions of The Village People singing on that bridge having a gay old time?

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Dad, why did you bring me to a gay steel mill?

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IMAGE(http://www.detroitbuildingtrades.org/newspapr/MackinacBridgeRivetersGoesWith(2).jpg)
        ... or, as they're called in Michigan, "Riverters"

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no longer functional as a bridge - that should trump any and all concerns about historic preservation.

As my best friend, who has a degree in history, often states "Some old things are just that - old things."

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Agreed, love this bridge! It has character. Not everything has to be plastic fantasic tacky Ikea China-made.

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I had liked what they had done with that bridge, adding the lights to it and such. Coming from the Aquarium stop to head to the Seaport, it was a nice little shortcut. Worth the upkeep? Probably not.

That said, it's probably good news for The Barking Crab; likely not as good news for The Daily Catch. When workers at Independence Wharf and International Place head out for their lunch breaks in search of underwhelming seafood, they'll probably pick the first place they pass.

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Will be thrilled if that bridge comes down. They have been dwarfed by the new hotel going up feet from their front door. They could use a little sunlight.

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If there's an eyesore that needs removing, it's the Barking Crab.

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Sounds strikingly familiar to the LI bridge - except this one with less dire consequences, of course.

US Rep Lynch supposedly secured $3 million for (some) repairs back in 2005, and there have been proposals over the years for renovations / rehabilitation but nothing ever seems to get done.

Maybe the Mass Conventions Authority can get involved like they did with the Tea Party museum.

http://lynch.house.gov/press-release/congressman-lynch-announces-house-a...

PS. Were you under the impression the Boston Tea Party Museum was located on the site of the Tea Party? It wasn't.

Some theories on where it might have been: http://www.his.jrshelby.com/btp/

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We want to preserve the bridge because it's "historic". But historic preservation regulations make it nearly impossible to do even routine maintenance in a timely and cost-effective manner.

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I think its now mostly accepted that if you walk down pearl st straight into the channel, its around there. Not on the spot, but not too far off!

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I thought it was a landmark and historically protected. Well I'll be!
I think there are only a few swing bridges left.

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Need directions to James Hook or the Moakley Court House?

Walk down Atlantic ave until you see that giant hunk of rusting scrap. They are right next to it.

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Hey! The rust adds character!

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So much nicer than Seaport Ave, where there is no enforcement for motorists and it is so exposed.

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The blander than vanilla Moakley bridge (Seaport Blvd) was built as its replacement. I would rather walk over the Old Northern Ave bridge any day of the week.

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functional and easy to maintan Moakley Bridge. FIFY.

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Easy to maintain? Then why is the Moakley Bridge already crumbling?

Just give this http://goo.gl/maps/NpxBf and this http://goo.gl/maps/HH0QN a few more icy winters, and they'll end up worse than the average old Massachusetts bridge.

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It was nice to have an alternative to the speeding homicidal drivers trying to funnel into the highway on the Seaport bridge who are adding exactly nothing to the area... It was like a little park where you could slow down and breathe, full of history and fascinating engineering. A little rust is good for a city IMHO.

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I hope they fix it up to the level of it being a bike/ped bridge, we need that in the area. The squidport bridge is nearby but the cars and trucks coming off the highway onto it and the ones entering the ramp to get to the highway make it a very unpleasant experience. With all the money being spent on bridges for cars and trucks, one pedestrian bridge to the waterfront would be very welcome.

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Perhaps one of the pharma companies can sponsor a pedestrian replacement.

We have the best engineers in the world sitting across the Charles

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Why do something sensible and innovative in terms of architecture and City Planning? Why do something which makes sense?

Why take a look at the Fan Pier Area now that development is nearly 15 years on and acknowledge mistakes in terms of the human scale of architecture and layout?

Don't you know we have to shove everyone over the Bridge of Sighs as in what an ugly piece of suburban crap probably designed by the person who invented Zubaz it so ugly and unnecessarily arched that it makes me want to sigh?

It is a shame in a way that we have a building boom going on and party lights are on at Local 7. If this was 2011 there would be a march on the State House today to fix that bridge.

There has been faux planning on this bridge since the Big Dig started. For some reason the ghost of Joe Moakley and his hatred of the old bridge has kept things in a state of inertia. He wanted it gone, he was going to have the CG declare it a hazard to navigation, in order to highlight the bridge named for his wife. Joe has been in the ground for 13 years now. He has a nice big park in South Boston named for him with sayings all around it that make the old South Boston crew slap each other on the back and talk about how great they are. Fix or replace the bridge. Keep this pedestrian corridor open in the sea of NASCAR based city planning that the Seaport has become.

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now need to take the Moakley Bridge - which was supposed to completely replace the Northern Avenue span - or Summer Street

Moakley, Congress, Summer. Then you can get across down by World Shaving Headquarters, but can't much of anwhere from there without some extremely unpleasant crossings by Cabot St garage and under the Expressway.

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Yeah, it was closed this morning when I went to cross it as part of my commute. It was a nice way for pedestrians to avoid the horribly timed light at Seaport and Atlantic. Gives a walk signal only if you ask for it every two minutes, which is not a good crossing for pedestrians. Add to that the incompetent police officers at the evening rush hour who never take pedestrians into consideration and the drivers desperately trying to speed through the light to get onto the highway, and it gets even worse.

It was annoying when the construction shut the underpass on the other side of the channel, but now since the Northern Ave bridge is shut that underpass doesn't matter at all now.

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If that gets closed, I don't even see a good way to detour around it.

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40 years ago while it was still a working bridge, it would occasionally get stuck in the open position causing a massive traffic jam. The metal grid decking was covered with patches of steel plates to prevent cars from falling thru! Time to let it go.

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Seeing as there are constantly vehicles parked on it in addition to a permanent construction trailer, you cannot tell me that the bridge is unsafe for pedestrians and bikes. The city is only doing this because of the Tsarnaev trial scheduled to begin at the Moakley courthouse in a few weeks. Typical reduction of the public good in the name of bogus "security." Boston should be ashamed of itself for this move.

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with the white-washed Disney-esque Boston Theme Park the city is fast becoming.

Bring on the tourists! Bring on the Olympics!

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I've used this bridge for years. Except for ocassionally replacing a plank the bridge appears sound. I would like to know what is the evidence indicating that the bridge is dangerous?

The bridge is handsome. As someone else mentioned it reminds us of the power of 19th century United States when the nation was powerful and muscular, steel was produced here and when we built public structures with both great style and to last for more than a few decades.

Part of the beauty of this bridge is that its structure is not hidden. Anyone can see how it supports itself. Most architecture is skinned in glass and concrete and tries to hide the architecture. This bridge is a proud statement of what is required for a structure to do its job. We can see the skeleton of the bridge; we can see how weight is carried and transferred. It is a lesson in boththe beauty of bold muscular architecture but also a lesson in to any passersby in how a structure is built.

A bridge such as the Moakley bridge is an attempt to hide the fact that it is a bridge. Instead of focusing attention on the fact that the bridge connects two points of land separated by water, it instead distracts attention away from its purpose, pretending to be just a road that bypasses an area that should be ignored.

Is the North Avenue bridge not safe? Or is this a backhanded way to "prove" why the bridge should come down. There is a constituency that would logically support tearing this bridge down. The people who dock their boats between the North Avenue and Moakley bridges. Having to wait for the North Avenue bridge to turn must be a terrible inconvenience for them.

If the North Avenue bridge is opened come Spring and left in the open position then that is strongly points to the people who dock near the Barking Crab as using their money and political influence to destroy what is a part of Boston's architectural history.

It's ironice that there was recent discussion of opening part of the Northern Avenue bridge to vehicular traffic. Apparently that is not valued highly at this point.

If this bridge is destroyed it will be another example of the lie that Boston values its history. Way too many of Boston's finest 19th century architecture of many styles have been torn down and replaced with giant glass boxes of dull form and boring presence.

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This is a lame excuse to tear this bridge down and build a new bridge for car access to the Seaport. Didn't the City publish a study how vehicular access to this area is terrible?

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I believe this article explains what was being considered.
Maybe this is a lash back reaction from those who headed the effort to re-car the bridge?

http://www.universalhub.com/2014/city-looks-re-open-northern-avenue-brid...

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Maybe they can convert it into some luxury micro apartments.

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