Whitney Young Memorial Bridge - Bridge History and Renaming

Bridge History and Renaming

The East Capitol Street Bridge saw its first suicide when one-legged 48-year-old Adolphius L. Groom leapt from the bridge on the morning of July 13, 1967. The first major accident on the bridge occurred on March 7, 1969, when two vehicles collided head-on on the span, killing two people. Another major crash occurred on September 18, 1971, when a vehicle on the bridge was rear-ended, killing one of the occupants. In October 1977, a man traveling at high speed across the bridge rear-ended another automobile and died. Another suicide occurred on December 16, 1986, when a man leapt from the bridge and landed on a moving vehicle below. Another traffic fatality occurred on the bridge on November 13, 1986, when a driver struck a disabled vehicle on the bridge and was himself rear-ended by a third car. In February 1990, an ambulance taking a patient to the hospital was struck on the bridge by an automobile traveling at about 100 mph, leaving the driver and passenger in the vehicle in critical condition.

The bridge was also the scene of a famous rape and murder in D.C. history. On October 1, 1971, Richard Anthony Lee was accused of kidnapping Robert L. Ammidown and his wife, Linda E. Ammidown; forcing them to drive to the East Capitol Street Bridge overpass above the railroad tracks; and raping and killing Linda Ammidown. Police later learned that Robert Ammidown had hired Lee to kill Linda in a plot to inherit her substantial fortune and win custody of their 12-year-old son. Four men who had learned of the plot were attempting to extort money from Ammidown. In separate trials, Judge John J. Sirica found Ammidown and Lee guilty of murder. Ammidown received a sentence of life in prison, but Lee received the death penalty. Eight days after sentence was imposed, the United States Supreme Court held in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) that death penalty laws in the United States constituted cruel and unusual punishment and thus were unconstitutional. Lee's sentence was changed to life in prison. The Court later upheld new death penalty laws in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). The Ammidown/Lee trial was the last death penalty case in the District of Columbia. (The District of Columbia abolished the death penalty in 1981.)

A federal report in March 1972 listed the East Capitol Street Bridge as one of several "deficient" bridges needing repair in the District of Columbia. D.C. officials disagreed with the report's conclusions, arguing they had not submitted complete data on the bridge.

In early 1974, the East Capitol Street Bridge was renamed the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Bridge in honor of civil rights activist and National Urban League Executive Director Whitney Young.

In 1980, District officials spent $8.5 million reconstructing the deck of the bridge. The bridge was carrying about 56,000 vehicles a day at that time. One side of the span was closed at a time, with two-way traffic proceeding on the open portion.

In 1982, D.C. officials proposed building the Barney Circle Freeway, which would have linked Interstate 695 (which dead-ended at a junction with Pennsylvania Avenue SE) to the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge by building a six-lane freeway from Barney Circle to the bridge through Anacostia Park. The plan would also have built a new bridge across the Anacostia River from Barney Circle to connect with the Anacostia Freeway near E Street SE. After numerous delays and strong citizen opposition, the Barney Circle Freeway project was cancelled in 1997.

The bridge continued to have work done as it neared a half century of use. In 1996, the last year the city collected traffic data on the structure, 66,200 vehicles per day used the bridge. The roadway's condition was noticeably rough in 1997. In 2004, the District of Columbia resurfaced the deck and made repairs to three piers at a cost of $3.4 million. In 2009, the Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge Inventory rated the bridge as "not deficient." The District of Columbia Department of Transportation estimated that by 2015, the bridge would be carrying only about 60,000 vehicles per day—about 10 percent fewer than in 1996.