The Beautiful Bay Bridge Frank Lloyd Wright Never Got to Build
David
Article: Unbuilt "Butterfly Bridge"
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Roderick Grant
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Re: Article: Unbuilt "Butterfly Bridge"
I thought the bridge was intended to replace the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge at the middle of San Francisco Bay.
The Cesar Chavez Street site seems not to make much sense.
The Cesar Chavez Street site seems not to make much sense.
Re: Article: Unbuilt "Butterfly Bridge"
Read Paul V Turner for the story of the bridge's inception. Various crossings of San Francisco Bay have been proposed, from the days when only ferry boats provided the vital connection between the east and west shores of the bay, and between the city and the coastal counties to the north.
When Wright and his engineering accomplice, Jaroslav J Polivka of Berkeley, were proposing a second east-west Bay bridge, their favored "southern crossing" location would have connected the east end of Army (now Cesar Chavez) Street in San Francisco and the island of Alameda, adjacent to Oakland. This made not much more sense than the alternate route backed by state officials, the so-called Twin Bridges concept where a second Bay Bridge would be built next to the original.
Today, there are two further Bay crossings (besides the existing west portion of the Bay Bridge and its replacement east span), the San Mateo-Hayward and Dumbarton Bridges, both well south of San Francisco/Oakland and reflecting the growth of the southern Bay communities in the postwar years. These bridges, opened respectively in 1967 and 1982, were not in existence when the Butterfly Bridge was being proposed.
S
When Wright and his engineering accomplice, Jaroslav J Polivka of Berkeley, were proposing a second east-west Bay bridge, their favored "southern crossing" location would have connected the east end of Army (now Cesar Chavez) Street in San Francisco and the island of Alameda, adjacent to Oakland. This made not much more sense than the alternate route backed by state officials, the so-called Twin Bridges concept where a second Bay Bridge would be built next to the original.
Today, there are two further Bay crossings (besides the existing west portion of the Bay Bridge and its replacement east span), the San Mateo-Hayward and Dumbarton Bridges, both well south of San Francisco/Oakland and reflecting the growth of the southern Bay communities in the postwar years. These bridges, opened respectively in 1967 and 1982, were not in existence when the Butterfly Bridge was being proposed.
S
Re: Article: Unbuilt "Butterfly Bridge"
The model was recently on exhibit at the Hagen History Center in Erie, Pa.