Morning on the Murray Morgan

Second in a set of essays about one of Tacoma, Washington’s abandoned bridges.

Ramps to Nowhere

by S.T. Lile

 

In an apparently continuing effort to gentrify Dock Street and the Thea Foss Waterway, they’ve improved the sidewalks all the way to the base of the 11^th Street/Murray Morgan Bridge. They’re wider. There are bolt-studded concrete stumps where streetlights will one day be. Saplings have been planted in yawning squares, their roots reaching for fertile ground. Rising above that last bit of new sidewalk are the steel legs of the bridge. Some grey, some green, some spotted with rust and moss, the legs press skyward to support the span of roadway high above. Yet laced among them are a series of dangling ramps that hang useless and forgotten due to the amputation of their active ends. What were they for?

 

The answer was difficult to find—and there may be more pieces out there still—but old photographs and a morning of urban archaeology revealed the basic story. The clues—old dots in a connect-the-dot urban mystery—were there, hidden beneath the street surface and in the raw edges of the aged ramps themselves. Those crackled layers of wood, asphalt and steel pointed to a second use for the bridge structure, that of access to what had once been a line of Dock Street flourmills on the waterfront below. Hundreds of people worked in those mills until one by one the mills burned and failed to be rebuilt. Albers Mill, blocks away and transformed into loft apartments, is a lone survivor.

 

I knew about the flourmills from photographs found at the Tacoma Public Library. First I searched for pictures of the bridge itself. Then for Dock Street, the road that runs beneath it. Then for Cliff Street, Bayside Avenue, and Schuster Parkway—all streets that do or did once run perpendicular to the bridge’s 11^th Street entrance. I found all sorts of photos—floods of pedestrians walking to work over in the tide flats, Dock Street flour mill workers, postcard shots of the bridge’s mid-span lifted to allow the entrance of Old Ironsides, and a few distant cityscapes showing a ramp sliding down from the underpinnings of the bridge to the street below. Those photographs confirmed my suspicion that cars had once sullied their way from one level to the next on a switch back route beneath the bridge.

 

It’s been a long time, however, since the ramps have felt the burn of rubber tires. Based on the photos, it’s been a good 30-40 years. This morning as I hiked the stairway from docks to bridge, I marveled at the tenacity of Tacoma’s flora. A sword fern fanned out from a crack in the stairway roof support. Moss blanketed whole stretches of buckled asphalt, willing it into fertile soil for grass and blackberry vines. Pigeon poop and rust-defying paint mingled on the metal supports, camouflaging the original latticework of the ramps’ siderails. Nature is winning.

 

And after 95 years, perhaps that’s as it should be. One look upward from the lower level of stairs, and you have to fight the vertigo that rickety heights inspire. A train passes on the tracks below and the whole structure shimmies. The pigeons flutter. The wood planks under the buckling asphalt creak. You know then why the bridge is closed to cars.

 

Once at the top, I walk along the pitted roadway now blocked with orange striped barrels and concrete barriers. I’m looking for what I’ve missed twenty walks before—the clue that confirms my suspicion that the ramps once joined Cliff Street for cars and pedestrians alike. Steps to the right of the bridge beckon. I follow them down below the surface of the bridge to a forgotten tunnel that slides past a reeking dumpster and reaches, if only in my imagination, for that old dangling, rotten ramp. I can see the dots of road and ramp connected now, despite the concrete supports of Schuster Parkway. Cars on one side, people on the other. It had been a clever solution for accessing the waterfront far below.

 

Although a quiet relic now that the new 509 bridge is open, the Murray Morgan still owns the waterway. Tall ships must call ahead to have the bridge lifted as its operator has been reassigned to Hood Canal. Its metal skeleton stretches prominently from shore to shore, accented by an operator’s house and a little guard shack. The walls of the shack are streaked with graffiti and a flagger’s SLOW sign peeks through windows blurry with grime. But the bridge still stands, clues to its age evident to those who look.

 

And one doesn’t have to look far. Nineteen twelve appears on the grayed-out commemorative plaques at either end of the bridge. Nineteen fifty-six is imprinted in the concrete balustrades at the tide flat end. Built and modified over time, the Murray Morgan faces potential death despite the efforts of Tacoma’s city council. Rumor has it that certain council members chained themselves to the bridge in an effort to save it, but I can’t say whether that’s true. All that’s visible to me now are ramps to nowhere, except, perhaps, back through time.

 

 

 

Morning on the Murray Morgan

First in a set of essays about one of Tacoma, Washington’s abandoned bridges.

Snow and Wings: Mystery on the 11^th Street Bridge

by S.T. Lile

 

Finally, it was the wings—wing after torn wing—that made me look up. When I walk, I usually look down. Down at the new paving in front of my apartment building, down at the gravel-strewn construction zone nearby, down at the wooden planks of the boardwalk edging the Thea Foss waterway, and down at the broken pavement and cordoned-off sidewalks of the 11^th Street Bridge. I’d climbed up there on a set of wood and metal steps that pass the decrepit underpinnings of a bridge understandably now closed—to cars that is. Feet are fair game if you don’t mind the wings and heads; bird parts strewn across the abandoned roadway like a cemetery of fallen angels.

 

That morning, as I perched on my balcony fastening snowflake lights to the metal gridwork, it snowed. They were tiny flakes, but after a cold dry night, they were actually sticking. Accumulating like powered sugar on the concrete plaza of the Museum of Glass next door, the snowflakes lingered there at five feet above sea level long enough for me to remember how much I love the snow.  So, I’d decided to go for a walk and watch the snowfall from high up on the bridge.

 

As I reached the top of the stairs, a lone figure shuffled toward town, dark pants and tan coat soaked with grime. I walked the other way—over the bridge, toward the Tacoma tide flats filled with warehouses, pulp mills, and shipping yards. It was then that I noticed the wings. Wings are feathers not food. Especially when an abundance of pigeons roost nearby—and you have baby chicks to feed, and you’re a falcon. I remembered the peregrine falcons that got great press when they took up residence on the counterweights almost a decade ago. Evidence suggests they are still there, still hungry, and still hunting.

 

But even with a viable explanation for their presence on the bridgeway, the wings still haunted me. In my last pass across the bridge—I’d lingered on the span far longer than I’d intended, surveying the worn waterfront in the quiet of a snowy Sunday—the Lone Bridge Keeper—for that’s what I’d come to call him—returned in a flurry of wild scratching around the neck and chest of his cast-off Carhartt. We kept a wide berth but swapped greetings as our paths crossed, two strangers on a silent bridge. Why was he there? Why then, in that very moment?

 

A few days later, snow had turned to rain, but I went walking anyway. The 11^th Street Bridge provided welcome shelter for about ten steps as I passed beneath it. I had no desire to hike the stairs and cross the bridge in the pouring rain, but that didn’t keep the snowy morning out of my mind. In a strange Skellig* moment, I imagined the Lone Bridge Keeper glance behind him as he reached for a pair of freshly fallen wings. He slung them over his shoulder, shrugged into them, and disappeared into the bridge’s heights.

 

Months later when I walked the bridge again, there wasn’t a pair of wings to be found. The Lone Bridge Keeper had vanished too, gone to wherever snow goes in summer.

 

*SKELLIG is a story by David Almond about a boy who discovers a lost and sick angel hiding in a tumble-down garage.

 

 

 

Tools of the History Trade (Part II)

Excerpted from my book History Lab To Go!, published in 2002 by the Washington State Historical Society. 

The last three “tools” in the “seven concepts, seven tools” of historical inquiry scheme are People, Books & Periodicals, and Electronic Media. Here’s the lowdown. 

People—Oral histories, letters, memoirs, diaries, journals, and expert advice all fall within the people tool. These items, and the people they represent, may provide an eyewitness account or an expert opinion. Many times, the initial investigation of an object, event, or time period begins by asking someone you know who might have special knowledge about a particular subject. 

Books & Periodicals—Perhaps one of the most commonly used sources of historical evidence, books and periodicals lead us on a journey through the printed word. As bibliography bloodhounds, we can follow a trail from a book’s list of resources to magazine and newspaper articles and on to primary source documents such as letters or journals. While a book may cover a topic in a more permanent and definitive way, magazines and newspapers provide immediate and focused glimpses of current and historic issues and events. 

Electronic Media—Encompassing audio recordings, film, video, and the Internet, electronic media provides a unique view into the past. Film, video, and audio recordings allow “instant replays” of past events, the viewing of which would otherwise be impossible. The Internet has become an important research tool for investigating everything from manufacturers to trademarks, and place names to people. Museum collections around the world are getting digitized, too, making objects more accessible than ever (even if nothing beats seeing the real thing). I’ll be writing about some of my favorite online collections in upcoming posts, so stay tuned.

This post concludes the “tools” list. The concepts will follow soon.

Tools of the History Trade (Part I)

Excerpted and updated from my book History Lab To Go! published in 2002 by the ever-so-forward-thinking Washington State Historical Society.

What are the Tools of the History Trade? In short, the “Tools” are sources of historical evidence. Each artifact, image, map, book or periodical, personal account, recording and ephemeral item is a piece to the puzzle that is the past. Learning to use these puzzle pieces and to find the relationships among them is the essence of historical inquiry.

The first four tools are:

Artifacts—Three-dimensional objects made or used by humans. They can be handmade or manufactured, representative of a place, a people, or a particular industry. Works of art can be considered artifacts, especially objects that blend art, craft, culture, and function. Pottery, basketry, textiles, and funerary sculpture are all great examples of artifacts as art.

Ephemera—Printed items, usually made of paper, that are only used for a short period of time. Concert posters, movie tickets, ferry schedules, catalogs, brochures, and even junk mail are all considered ephemera.

Images—Drawings, paintings, and photographs. Images provide visual insight to past events. When using images as historical evidence, one must evaluate the artist’s intent, cultural and educational background, personal beliefs, and medium. Prior to the invention of photography, drawings and paintings provided the only visual record of past events. Today, photography is the most popular choice for recording events as they happen.

Maps—An important means of evaluating change over time of places across the globe. Maps reflect human knowledge of a place—its resources and characteristics as they have been known in different time periods. Maps come in many forms—political boundary maps, aeronautical charts, and topographical maps are a few examples. The kinds of maps used and developed in different time periods and places can provide clues to determining the trends, technologies, and beliefs among people of the past.

That’s it for now…Watch for another exciting episode of “Tools and Concepts” coming soon. In Part II we’ll explore the jumble of People, Books & Periodicals, and Electronic Media that make up the final three Tools of the History Trade. 

Egyptian Tombs as Objects: The Thebian Mapping Project

Have you ever wondered what the inside of an ancient Egyptian tomb looks like? If so, you need you check out the Thebian Mapping Project web site at http://www.thebanmappingproject.com.

Thebes is the ancient name for modern-day Luxor (Al Uqsur in local and Google terms) which sits on the east bank of the Nile River far south of Cairo. Nearby sprawl the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. The Thebian Mapping Project web site lets you journey there not only through the lens of scholarly expertise, but with views and maps of the various tombs that give you a sense of the place no other web site has mastered. 

In the “About” section of the web site, you’ll find a brief introduction and explanation of the project as it was conceived by Dr. Kent Weeks and his artist wife Susan Weeks. “Since its inception in 1978, the Theban Mapping Project (TMP, now based at the American University in Cairo) has been working to prepare a comprehensive archaeological database of Thebes. With its thousands of tombs and temples, Thebes is one of the world’s most important archaeological zones.”

Their work opens our eyes not only to the wonders of these ancient tombs, but to the importance of working in league with governments and institutions to preserve them–and antiquities of all sorts. Exploring ancient funerary practices and religious centers can also help us open our minds and hearts to different ways of interacting with the world and the people and objects in it. 

The Thebian Mapping Project is a journey you won’t forget.

Historical Fiction Writers Check This Out

I’ve just finished watching a great video of a program held at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles featuring the historical fiction writers Steven Saylor and Steven Pressfield. Titled “Writing Historical Fiction: The Ancient World in Modern Literature,” the program was moderated by journalist Patt Morrison. In the introduction, Morrison makes a great observation about the role of objects (and museum collections in general) in today’s world.

“Objects are a way of channeling the past,” Morrison says.

They also often serve as markers in history. Saylor makes reference to the invention of the stirrup, which didn’t exist in ancient Greece and Rome, and how he’d made the mistake of including it in an early novel. He took the reference out of the second printing, but nonetheless makes a point about knowing what objects are key to the time period and place you are writing about. Since the stirrup revolutionized horsemanship and warfare, it’s a pretty pivotal object (possibly even a topic for another post–I did write about it as part of my undergrad thesis). The other point that Saylor and Pressfield make throughout the program is how important it has been for them to read the ancient sources–and how their research varies dramatically depending on the time period about which they are writing. 

All in all, it’s a lively and enlightening 84 minutes. If you don’t have the time to watch, you can also download the audio file and listen to it while you’re enroute to Rome (or work).

Check it out at: 

http://www.getty.edu/museum/programs/historical_fiction_panel.html

And if you want to check out the Getty collection of antiquities and other art, go to www.getty.edu in the Museum/Explore Art section. It’s a fantastic online collection (although you won’t find any stirrups). 

 

Coming soon…

Object inquiries and secret resources to help solve the history mysteries in your life. Whether you’re a writer, illustrator, museum professional, educator, or student, you might just find this blog helpful and occasionally entertaining. But be warned, I’m not a daily blogger (I’m aiming for twice a week), I’m weirdly random about the things that catch my eye, and I’ve done enough homework to know I don’t want to do yours (well, maybe not unless there’s serious $$ involved). 

So watch here for upcoming posts on stuff like:

My Book Shelf (is a Scary Place)

One Man’s Crap, Another Person’s Treasure

Ephemera (if you don’t know what the word means you definitely need to read this blog!)

Big Stuff (objects too big to fit in a museum)

Conservation

The Secret Life of Mount Makers

Route 66 Recollections

“My Eye” Highlights

Iconography 

Where the Heck is Svalbard?

Why I love Compass Roses

And whatever else I dream up…see ya ’round “What’s That Thing?”