Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge is one of three bridges designed by Santiago Calatrava for the Dallas area. It spans the Trinity River and connects the Woodall Rogers Freeway with Singleton Boulevard in West Dallas. Currently it is the only one of the three built.

Driving over the bridge towards Downtown Dallas

If you're a fan of Calatrava's work, then you'll love the bridge. If you really don't care one way or the other about architects, then you'll just wonder why this bridge, in this design, in the place in Dallas, and why it is seemingly going nowhere.

Look, up in the sky!
It's a bird! It's a plane!
No, it's a mass of cables reaching 400 feet into the sky!

I know, the whole idea behind this blog was to show Dallas from a pedestrian's point of view, since there are so many things you may miss if you're driving. Still, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge is one of the new icons of Dallas and deserves a little feature.

The view from the West side. The power lines spoil some of the view.

The best views of the bridge are from the West end of town. You hardly see it once you're in downtown given how most of the buildings hide it from sight.

Fire Hydrant

Just a close up of the top of a fire hydrant. I just happened to like how the paint was peeling off of this particular one.

No More Parking Here

Looks like someone didn't want to pay the extra 25 cents. Whoops...

Downtown Map

There is a great 3-D map of downtown at the Thanksgiving Square DART rail station.

Of course, it needs to be updated given some of the more recent construction in downtown, but that doesn't make it any less interesting.

Waiting to Cross

You've got to respect a man in suspenders.

I caught this shot waiting to cross Ross Ave. in front of the Fairmont Hotel.

Personally, I like how he's standing straight up and everything else in the picture is leaning at an angle.

Panoramic Mural

The mural in the entrance to the DMA in panoramic view. More information on the mural on The Gift of Life post.

The Greyhound bus included as a bonus item.

Museum Tower and DMA

The Museum Tower sits quietly in the background, debating if there will be enough sun today for it to shoot its solar death ray down at the DMA.

Sadly, there will probably be enough sun for it.

Trolley Stop Ahead

The McKinney Avenue Trolley terminus on St. Paul.

The Klyde Warren Park extension is due to be completed the end of September, 2013. Once that is complete they'll connect the two termini up on Federal Street to form the St. Paul loop.

Big Red Wall

 

The Edwards Manufacturing Company building is one of the old buildings in the West End.

The building sits at the North East corner of Corbin and Market streets and is currently vacant.

Brick Brutalism

Among some of Dallas' "finer" bits of architecture, include this modern loft condominium built in 2000 in a red brick variant of of post-modern brutalist style.

More information can be found at www.1999mckinney.com.

Klein Bros Cement

The Klein Bros. have been in the concrete business for over 100 years here in the Dallas area. It's nice to see some of their older work still standing.

JFK on Art

Quote on the wall at the Dallas Museum of Art for the Hotel Texas exhibit.

We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth... In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But democratic society--in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation. And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having 'nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.'

-President John F Kennedy, Amherst College, October 26, 1963

The Big Eye

New York may be the Big Apple, but it seems Dallas is getting a big eye.

More to come as I find out what it's for (other than art).