One Liner Twofer – #1LinerWeds

Today’s one liners both have a “Best Read By” date of 12/5/2018. One because the story ties in with Monday’s post and one because we’re coming to the end of college football season. Since I know some of you are not sports fans, I’ll keep the latter one short.

Yes, I understand that the whole post is supposed to be short, but you know me better than that.

When I was driving down to Manhattan to meet my friend at the Cloisters, I followed Greta’s (my GPS) advice to take the Merritt Parkway. I did that because it was a Saturday. The Merritt is a beautifully scenic four-lane parkway, but it is narrow and if anything goes wrong with anything, traffic can be snarled forever. For the benefit of those of you not from this part of the country, a ‘parkway’ in Connecticut and New York, is a limited access highway that is open to passenger vehicles only – no trucks and no commercial vehicles. It’s a peaceful ride compared to Interstate 95, which is eight lanes of anything with wheels, that runs parallel to the Merritt.

“Yo Greta – Save video.”

That’s the wake-up phrase and instruction for Great to save the last two minutes of video from her dashcam. I did this every time I passed under one of the bridges on the parkway. These bridges are a signature feature of the Merritt Parkway. I could explain, but I’ll borrow some text from the website:

“The bridges along the Merritt Parkway and the Wilbur Cross Parkway are a fine example of one man’s imagination, George Dunkleberger, chief designer with the Connecticut Department of Highways at the time, drew inspiration both from history and the spirit of the times. Each bridge is treated as a separate unit or horizontal building, if you will, resembling anything from medieval bridges to stage sets, or futuristic gates to other-worldly cities and kingdoms…

It is also interesting to note that as the Parkways were built, proceeding from Greenwich to Meridan and the Second World War commenced, the designs became exceedingly less elaborate, with cleaner lines and the absence of many materials caused by wartime shortages are evident, such as reflector materials and steel for ornamentation.”

Note: I extracted 51 images from almost 40 minutes of video from the 60 or so miles of highway, so there are more pictures than normal, but there are way fewer than there could be.

Now, as to that football one-liner. Saturday night, after returning from New York, I watched some football, including the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship game between my alma mater, The University of Pittsburgh and ACC powerhouse, Clemson University. In less than six minutes and after only four offensive plays by Clemson, Pitt was down 14 – 0. I texted my brother, saying that I might not stay up for the whole game. He replied:

“Not likely to be a nail biter.”

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, I’d encourage you to join in on the fun. You can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

Many of the bridges are cast concrete.

Nice clean lines.

I like how the bridges conform to the landscape.

Hard not to like the stone (faced, I’m guessing) bridges.

Some are rather plain.

I tried to include one showing the depth of the walls.

This is one of my favorites.

Interesting when the chose to cover the distance in a single span/

Simple steel structure, decorated with stone.

Cast concrete but nice decorative features.

I think the bridge is cast concrete the walls give an appearance of mass that isn’t really there.

If not for the decorations on the abutments, this could pass for a more modern bridge.

A similar look to some others, but more interesting details.

It’s the little details.

Cast concrete, but very pretty.

The kind of bridge you want to drive under :-)

These bridges are practical structures made to appear a little interesting.

Simple design, steel bridge, iron work railings.

A few lines in the concrete, a little ornamental iron work and the ordinary becomes interesting.

Different treatment to the cast concrete and we have a massive look.

More of an entrance appearance.

All it takes is a few decorations to transform the ordinary into the special.

It’s hard to see the winged statue on the center support.

Relatively basic appearance. Near the eastern end.

Isn’t that fun looking?

I can’t tell if this is worn, or if the random pattern is by design.

I think this is actually a steel bridge with concrete decorations on the span.

This appears to be stone, but I think it might be cast concrete.