Selby Avenue Bridge

St. Paul, Minnesota
Completed 1993

In 1992, I got a phone call from City of Saint Paul engineers. The 100-year-old Selby Avenue Bridge would soon be demolished and they hoped to replace it with “something more than a bump in the road.” “Would you,” they asked, “help us design the detailing for the new bridge?” “Yes,” I replied.

The materials of the original Shortline overpass were stone, steel, and wood. The 1,100-foot replacement span is built of concrete and steel with my designs for its railing and surface treatments linked to the construction and ornament of the former bridge. The rusticated pattern of the concrete abutments closely follows the dimensions of the cut-limestone blocks that supported the original structure. Where the bridge deck begins, the sidewalk railings double in scale to embrace the surrounding cityscape. Beneath the deck is a thirty-inch-tall, continuous band of former railway names that suggest the rhythmic speed of passing trains while wrapping the new Selby Avenue Bridge with a ribbon of local history.