Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 30, 1990 TAG: 9004300102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This week I know: On Friday at 5:45 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, I will be at the lower end of the Jefferson Street leg of the Hunter Viaduct. I will take a leisurely stroll up the ramp to Williamson Road. I may pause there, sob a bit, blow my nose, dab my eyes and walk back down.
At 6 p.m., the viaduct leg will be closed forever.
We need a chance, the viaduct and I do, to bid adieu.
Most of the time, 7,243 cubic yards of concrete don't do much for me emotionally. This week, though, I'm feeling faint. Do you mind if I sit?
This isn't just any 806,870 pounds of reinforcing steel. This isn't some strange pile of 2,595,200 pounds of structural steel.
This is my pile. Our pile. This is the Hunter Viaduct, the road on stilts that not only has carried our traffic these many years, but also has taught us a little bit about Latin.
Face it. You ever gonna' use the word "viaduct" again?
Not likely. Then again, how often did you use the word "consolidation" before mergermania?
We're straying.
The fact is that after 33 years, 10 months and three days of faithful service, the road-that-pretended-to-be-a-bridge is coming down.
Actually, 397 feet of it will be coming down, only from Salem Avenue to Pier No. 4. Piers 1, 2 and 3 - concrete columns holding up the viaduct - will fall and will take the slabs they support with them.
There will be a 253-foot nub of a viaduct left, fenced off from traffic. I am hoping to persuade the National Park Service to designate the nub a spur of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and to build on the site a scenic overlook. We'll need to buy no farmland to do this.
The reason the Jefferson leg of the Hunter Consolidation - er, Viaduct - is being reduced to rubble is that a spanking new architectural spire will be erected in its place.
If the Hotel Roanoke deserved a goodbye ceremony, if lots of people shed crocodile tears over the H&C Coffee neon, then by God the spiny-bottomed road ought to feel a drop or two of salty tears on its stony macadam.
I will be there. This viaduct is 0.422 miles of road that have won my heart, especially the 0.139 miles in the air. From the 11-foot-tall abutment near Salem Avenue, that majestic Jefferson leg soars to 25 feet off the ground at the fabled Pier No. 4.
Those sweeping 26-foot-wide roadways, a deck that is 70 feet, 6 inches wide from rail to rail. And oh! Those glorious 1,960 feet of rail!
We'll miss you, viaduct.
In 1953, it cost $10,000 to tear down your predecessor bridge. Now we'll pay $180,000 to take you down - a good price for humane viaduct euthanasia. You cost us $1,656,718.68 to build.
Your abutments, your piers, your columns, trench drains, porous back-fill, and drop inlets have served us well. We've had our money's worth, and then some.
I'll be there Friday, viaduct, at 5:45 p.m. sharp. To bid my goodbye and to cry a bit.
by CNB