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.