Montreal's Harbor Bridge, which opened May 25 1930. Still Canada's third busiest (the Champlain of course being the busiest).
It was slated to cost $12 million but ended up costing $20 million. It has been in the planning for about 50 years as people realized quickly that the Victoria Bridge, originally built only for rail, was not enough to get 'er done. The name was changed in 1934 to the Jacques Cartier Bridge. It was long known as Canada's favourite spot to commit suicide (including my good friend the novelist poet Louis Martin Doutre). Most would jump onto the land segment, not into the water. Thanks partly to my tenacious pestering a few years back, the bridge authorities were embarrassed into finally building the sticks that prevent people from leaping.
As for who the people might be in the photos, here are some suggestions: W.L. McDougald, Chairman of the Harbor Commissioners could be one. Emilien Daoust helped with the plans but he was dead before these shots were taken, having expired in 1928. The cornerstone was laid August 9, 1926 by Milton Lewis Hersey of Rosemount Avenue Westmount. He was a commissioner, as was Alfred Lambert. There's a lead box, 28 by 9 by 9 inches in the cornerstone. It contains sketches and documents considered important to historians, at the corner of St. Antoine and Notre Dame and was not supposed to be opened for hundreds of years. Col. C. N. Monsarrat and P. L. Pratley were Montreal-based consulting engineers who worked on the choosing of the site and the initial drawings of the bridge project along with J. B. Strauss of Chicago. Presumably everybody knows the story of which the bridge has a curve - the Barsalou Soap Company flat-out refused all attempts at expropriation so the bridge was built bent.
As for who the people might be in the photos, here are some suggestions: W.L. McDougald, Chairman of the Harbor Commissioners could be one. Emilien Daoust helped with the plans but he was dead before these shots were taken, having expired in 1928. The cornerstone was laid August 9, 1926 by Milton Lewis Hersey of Rosemount Avenue Westmount. He was a commissioner, as was Alfred Lambert. There's a lead box, 28 by 9 by 9 inches in the cornerstone. It contains sketches and documents considered important to historians, at the corner of St. Antoine and Notre Dame and was not supposed to be opened for hundreds of years. Col. C. N. Monsarrat and P. L. Pratley were Montreal-based consulting engineers who worked on the choosing of the site and the initial drawings of the bridge project along with J. B. Strauss of Chicago. Presumably everybody knows the story of which the bridge has a curve - the Barsalou Soap Company flat-out refused all attempts at expropriation so the bridge was built bent.
Harbour Bridge?
ReplyDeleteI am going to say the 2 side of the Victoria Bridge coming together.
ReplyDeleteCompletion of Vic Bridge for sure.
ReplyDeleteForgot to sign, sorry.
ReplyDeleteThe palm-greasing ceremony at the Big O?
Peabody
Completion of the Harbour Bridge?
ReplyDeleteThank You.
I'm going for the harbour bridge too.
ReplyDeleteThe Harbour Bridge.
ReplyDeleteBack in the Forties, when we young and impressionable, an old timer related a story that, may, or may not be true.
He said, one dark, cold and misty evening, a foreign freighter was creeping it's way upstream from Overseas into the harbour at Montreal.
Long before the Seaway and Radar.
They were travelling Dead Slow, a bit faster than the current to retain steerageway.
The mist thinned and thickened just enough they could, from time to time, see the buoys marking the ship channel.
A game of Russian Roulette, the 'game' being whether they would get to the next buoy safely in the channel thru the fog, and make a course correction or be pushed out of the channel, and aground.
The fog settled in thicker, and sweat started to flow on the bridge of the ship.
Steam whistles of other vessels heard from all points of the compass.
( This old guy could really tell a tale! )
'Where are we!' all aboard were asking, from the wheelhouse to the lookout above in the crowsnest to the lookouts on the bridge wings and on the bow.
The engineroom guys knew something was amiss, 'cause of the slow speed of the engine.
'Gosh! hope we are in the channel!'
Minutes passed like hours without a glimpse of shore or the comforting gleam of the Acetylene flame in a lantern luming the route to the safe harbour at Montreal.
Sweat really flowing, now.
Crew pacing side to side, peering to no avail thru the gloom.
CRASH!!!
Everyone jumped.
( The old timer hit the table with his fist, making us all jump, too! )
'Stop Engine!, Check for water coming IN!' were the commands of the moment.
One of the lookouts called back that they were still moving and not aground.
A walk around was started and found the reason for the sudden impact.
A mangled corpse was on the roof of the wheelhouse.
'We're under the Harbour Bridge!! the Pilot yelled.
'Slow Ahead' the new order, a slight turn to Starboard, and into the harbour safely.
A story at bedtime from back in the Forties.
Thank You.
Um, I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but that's not the completion of the Harbour Bridge. It's actually a still from the unreleased 1939 MGM propaganda film "Building Bridges of Hope and Understanding to Our New Nazi Overlords" - that's Errol Flynn as 'Dashing Appeasement' and Gunter Schneider as 'Krautz R. Sensible' as they complete the trans-oceanic autobahn linking German-held Portugal to Amerika. Get your facts straight!
ReplyDeleteNice story, MP&I.
ReplyDeleteCheck out this modern-day photo gallery of the bridge:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guillaumepelletier/sets/72157608178317645/
The two gents who shake hands are obviously, by the way they dress, senior officials; most probably engineers (because accountants would be unlikely to pose so dashingly right above a gaping abyss).
ReplyDeleteThe only reason a senior official would be dressed suchly would be for a celebration, most probably for the driving of the last pin connecting the suspended center span to the cantilever spans; one can see a worker busy working on a pin hole of respectable dimensions (bridge pins can be 2 feet diameter) below the legs of one of the gents.
Great storytelling everyone. Only thing of note I can recall is some U.S. comedian playing to the local crowd here with a bit about the "Jack Carter Bridge." (...it may well have been the man himself...)
ReplyDeletePeabody
You're right about your recollection, Peabody.
ReplyDeleteI remember shooting a Montreal Sports Awards Dinner (or NHL All-Star dinner) in the 1970's, and U.S. comedian Jack Carter was the MC for the night. He joked about the similarity of his name to Jacques Cartier's.
That's about the only thing I remember about that event.
Hmm... As a prize winner I'll republish this article on my web site. (Russian version though.)OK?
ReplyDeleteThe construction of the bridge meant the end of the ferry to Ste-Helen's Island wich, until then, was the only way to get there (except over the ice(?) in winter.
ReplyDeleteMontrealers picnicking ont he island had to be sure to catch the last ferry back (so my mother used to tell me.)