UnderBridge | Schematic concrete fatigue damage Crumbing proportionate to Ripeness utilization neglect |
R ust belt industrial ruins are on display in the West Bottoms, Kansas City's aged industrial/warehouse area. Located at the base of a downtown bluff along the Missouri and Kaw Rivers, originally it was the locus of railroads and stockyards and was the final destination of numerous western cattle drives. Today few of the old 4-5 story warehouses and factories that stretch for blocks are in operation. Others have been converted into tasteless haunted houses.
This image was shot as part of a post-apocalyptic wasteland tour. In addition to the architecture and graffiti, I was interested in this bridge. Here I am under the double-decked concrete reinforced viaduct originally constructed in 1915. The “Twelfth Street Trafficway Viaduct” was built to "facilitate the usual street traffic between sections of Kansas City, Mo., which are separated topographically." Designed by the distinguished architect J. A. L. Waddell and built by the Graff Construction Co, Seattle, the structure featured an upper deck that provided a roadway for vehicular traffic, a double-track electric railway and a single 5-foot sidewalk. The lower deck made available a second roadway for heavier commercial traffic to service the factories and warehouses. Now the whole thing is falling apart.
