Anyway, several weeks ago I was eating lunch outside and realized that it would probably be my last opportunity to comfortably take some pictures of the area around my building. The psychology building on the East bank of the Mississippi river and is fairly close to the 35W bridge. I thought I'd take some pictures of the remaining bridges over the river and the last vestiges of the 35W bridge. So, I started with the view from my lunch spot. In this picture you can see downtown Minneapolis in the background. You can also see a pedestrian bridge, which is about a two minute walk away from the psychology building.
To get some pictures of where the 35W bridge once was, I walked to the pedestrian bridge and took some pictures from there. If the 35 W bridge were still around, it would be just behind the one that's still standing in this next picture. If you look closely you can see some of the foundation for the old bridge, and construction equipment along the river banks (it's easiest to see on the right side). You can also see Saint Anthony Falls in the background.
By the time I took these pictures the cleanup was complete, and they were about a week away from starting construction on a new bridge. One of the eeriest things about the missing bridge, however, is that it's not really missing - it's just downstream. In the next picture you can see the twisted steel girders that have been pulled out from the river and lined up on the west bank. Although you can't see it in this picture, it looks like the NTSB is making good on their promise to put the bridge back together to figure out why it fell apart. My bus takes the bridge in the back of the picture to cross the river, and from there you can see that some of the girders have been arranged into what appears to be their original configuration.
