BRIDGES OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

The William Howard Taft Bridge, constructed in 1907, carries Connecticut Avenue across the Rock Creek Valley in Washington, D.C. Cutting a deep swath from north to south directly through the middle of the city, the valley’s slopes are so steep and rocky that they presented a major barrier to vehicle traffic between the governmental center surrounding the White House and Capitol and the northwest areas of the city for more than a hundred years. Throughout the nineteenth century, vehicle traffic had to wind down to the base of the valley, cross the creek on a relatively low-profile bridge, and then climb to the top of the bluff on the other side. By the early twentieth century, real estate developers trying to open up Northwest D.C. and the Maryland to suburban housing developments replaced these earlier low-profile bridges with high profile bridges, such as Taft, Duke Ellington, and Klingle Valley, which allowed commuters to speed across the entire valley in a matter of minutes.

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Of all of the various roadways that facilitated the development of the Washington residential suburbs west of Rock Creek and into Maryland, Connecticut Avenue is probably the most prominent.  Most of the fifty state-named “avenues” are internal to the District, and only a handful of them extend, relatively wide and straight, across the Maryland boundary and as far the Capital Beltway. Only Taft Bridge, carrying wide, straight Connecticut Avenue, directly connects downtown to Maryland and the Beltway west of Rock Creek. This makes the Taft Bridge of regional importance, as opposed to the mostly local function of most other Rock Creek bridges.

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At 128 feet high, Taft Bridge was the largest unreinforced concrete bridge, with no reinforcing iron bars, in the world. The structure was so universally admired that it established the aesthetic model that was used for many later bridges in the city. In 1908, Francis P. Sullivan, writing in the Architectural Annual, cited the Taft Bridge and the Piney Branch Bridge as “modern” examples of how innovative mixtures and surface treatments were being developed to make concrete work appear to look like masonry. In his history of dozens of Washington’s bridges in 1938, Emery provided an objective, unembellished sub-title for each new bridge subsection of his report. Key Bridge was discussed under the sub-title “Francis Scott Key Bridge”, P Street under the sub-title “P Street Bridge”, etc. However, the Taft Bridge was described under the sub-title “Taft Bridge, A Nation’s Pride.” All of these factors, as well as the innovative construction method used for the bridge, resulted in its placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

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In addition to the decorative arches of the structure, the sculptures on the corner monuments and the lampposts are among the most ornate in the city. The monuments on the four corners each hold a larger-than-life-sized lion sculpture, carved out of concrete. The lampposts on the bridge are also remarkable. Each of the twelve lampposts is twenty-two feet high, and made of bronze with a soft, light green patina. The lampposts are sculptures in themselves. Each is a pedestal with draped garlands of bronze fruits, a fluted column topped by a cornice, and then glass globe lights hanging from each side of the cornice. Each lamppost is then topped with a bronze eagle, again larger-than-life, with fully-spread wings. Today, the bridge is a major local landmark, even if most Washingtonians never get to see it. It has sidewalks on both sides, each with amazing views of Rock Creek below.

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I featured the bridge in Chapter 4, Decorative Bridges, in my book Bridgespotting: A Guide to Bridges that Connect People, Places, and Times. That book investigated all of the different reasons that tourists and people seeking recreation visit bridges, organizing the various bridges into “themes” based on the type of attraction. Taft Bridge gave me fits because it has so many attractions of various types that it could have fit almost anywhere in the book. In the end, I put it into a subchapter titled “Zoological Bridges,” because the eagle and lion sculptures are the best known features to the local residents. I have also included more detailed descriptions of the bridge in my new book, Bridges of Washington, DC: A History and Guide.