Friday Flashback: When They Broke Ground on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in December '05

Strange timing that one of my last tasks for the Observer will be covering the opening (but not really opening) of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. Shame I can't get Schutze to be my date this weekend, so instead I'll just have to schlep along my son, who wants to...

By Robert Wilonsky

March 2, 2012

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Strange timing that one of my last tasks for the Observer will be covering the opening (but not really opening) of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. Shame I can't get Schutze to be my date this weekend, so instead I'll just have to schlep along my son, who wants to get a few last photos on Unfair Park before I scoot. I also wanted to post these videos -- a six-part series of clips that date back to the frigid December 9, 2005, groundbreaking ceremony, then held on the soon-to-be-closed Continental Ave. Bridge and presided over by then-Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, who was accompanied by a host of bold-faced dignitaries (among them Ron Kirk, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Pete Sessions and council members), some of whom are still in office all these years later. Also in attendance: Santiago Calatrava hisself, seen above.

Said Miller, the former Observer-er, shortly before that long-ago launching of fireworks at the conclusion of the speech-making, Calatrava "has created an icon for Dallas, and we will never again have a postcard of our city without the Calatrava bridges being on it, and that is a huge thing for Dallas." She also called the bridge "our Eiffel Tower." Which, today, sounds all so familiar. Anyway. Here's your full schedule for the weekend's events; the map too. Then jump for the whole flashback. It's on a loop in Jim's office at this very moment.

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