Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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View From the Bridge By Jon Lee Cope Photos by Ted Tarquinio 70 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.13 design I t's been two decades since public ofcials and private donors in this self-branded "Possibility City" took on what seemed like an impossible task: turn the blighted downtown waterfront into one of the best-designed green spaces in the country. Did we say impossible? Comes now the crowning jewel of that design, the new Big Four Pedestrian Bridge at Waterfront Park, part of which could open to the public as early as next month. (In January, we got a sneak peek.) $18.5 million Total cost of the project & Architecture $12 million Cost of refurbishing the bridge itself $6.5 million Cost of the "slope" to the bridge Te original railroad bridge over the Ohio River was meant to bring Louisville full steam into the Industrial Revolution when it opened in 1895. But the world changes quickly, and the bridge connecting Louisville and Jefersonville, Ind., by train was abandoned in the 1960s. By that decade's end, all approaches to the bridge were removed, and the Big Four was left to rust. At one point, there was even talk of the bridge being sold to Costa Rica. Ten, in 1991, the idea — OK, the pos- sibility — emerged to convert the Big Four into a pedestrian bridge, as other cities have done with old bridges. It wouldn't come cheap — some $18.5 million, not counting the money Indiana will spend to fnish its end of the bridge — and it wouldn't come easy. David Karem, president of the Waterfront Development Corp., remembers that he frst wanted the Big Four incorporated into Waterfront Park's design. Te international landscape architectural frm Hargreaves Associates originally planned an