Construction
Bids for the entire $12 million construction project were solicited on May 23, 1952. The Arlington, Virginia, firm of J.A. LaPorte Inc. won the dredging contract, and the D.C. firm of Morauer & Hartzell won the fill contract. The work was expected to take 15 months. The NCPPC approved the city's plans to connect the new bridge to Kenilworth Avenue NE on December 13, 1952, and a $5.5 million plan to widen Kenwilworth Avenue into a divided, 10-lane freeway on March 24, 1953. D.C. officials paid $250,000 to buy the land for the exit ramps onto Kenilworth Avenue. Construction on the western approaches was blocked for a month after residents of Suitland, Maryland, (upset by loud trucks passing down their streets) won a month-long restraining order against the project so that contractors could devise and implement a noise-abatement program.
Construction on the bridge itself began in 1953. Baltimore Contractors, Inc. won the $1.2 million contract to build the bridge's substructure, and DeLuca Davis Construction (also of Baltimore) won the $2.2 million contract to the build the superstructure. District officials sought approval from Congress to spend $4.3 million in District of Columbia highway budget funds in September 1953. The city also applied for $4.2 million in federal matching highway funds to help finish the bridge. Driving of piles for the foundation began in December 1953. About 120 individuals helped construct the bridge deck.
All the substructure and most up the superstructure had been completed by August 1954. Widening of East Capitol Street east of the river was also completed in 1954. Completion was expected in October 1955. By late September 1954, 73 percent of the superstructure had been completed and only stone protections for the piers remained to be finished for the substructure. District transportation officials also said that ramps and overpasses for the Kenilworth Avenue exits were almost complete by this time as well, but the railroad track underpass (being built by S. Wikstrom Co.) was only 46 percent complete and not due for final work until November 1955. Officials said the bridge would open once Kenny Construction finished connecting the railroad underpass to East Capitol Street in the east.
Kenny Construction began work on the final $2.3 million phase of the bridge project on November 6, 1954. Work was due to end in 540 days. The Greenway Apartments (located at 3539 A Street SE) obtained an injunction in February 1955 stopping work for a month on the project after alleging that the excavations for the road would affect the foundation of their building.
The East Capitol Street Bridge opened on November 10, 1955. Tippy Stringer, a local television personality at WRC-TV (and later the wife of NBC news anchor Chet Huntley), cut the ribbon opening the bridge. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert V. Murray drove the first vehicle across the bridge. About 300 people attended the ceremony, which was held in a driving rain. Also present were all three D.C. Commissioners and Rep. George Hyde Fallon (chair of the House Committee on Public Works).
Read more about this topic: Whitney Young Memorial Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word construction:
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—John Dewey (1859–1952)
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—Gus Van Sant, U.S. screenwriter and director, and Dan Yost. Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon)
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)