Duke Ellington Bridge
Encyclopedia
The Duke Ellington Bridge, named after Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, carries Calvert Street NW over Rock Creek in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It connects 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan is a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., centered at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road. Adams Morgan is considered the center of Washington's Hispanic immigrant community, and is a major night life area with many bars and restaurants,...

 with Connecticut Avenue
Connecticut Avenue (Washington, D.C.)
Connecticut Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., and suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. It is one of the diagonal avenues radiating from the White House, and the segment south of Florida Avenue was one of the original streets in Pierre Charles...

 NW in Woodley Park, just north of the Taft Bridge
Taft Bridge
The Taft Bridge, also known as the Connecticut Avenue Bridge or William Howard Taft Bridge, is a historic bridge located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. It carries Connecticut Avenue over the Rock Creek gorge, including Rock Creek and the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, connecting the...

.

Originally called the "Calvert Street Bridge", it was designed by Paul Philippe Cret
Paul Philippe Cret
Paul Philippe Cret was a French-American architect and industrial designer. For more than thirty years, he headed the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.- Biography :...

 in a neoclassical
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 style and built in 1935. It was rededicated as the Duke Ellington Bridge following the death of the Washington native and famous band leader in 1974. It is a limestone structure with three graceful 146 feet (44.5 m) arches. There are four sculptural reliefs on the abutments measuring three feet high by four feet wide. The classical reliefs by Leon Hermant
Leon Hermant
Leon Hermant was a French-American sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture.Hermant was born in France, educated in Europe and came to America in 1904 to work on the French Pavilion at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri...

 represent the four modes of travel: automobile, train, ship, and plane.

The bridge replaced one built in 1891 by the Rock Creek Railway
Rock Creek Railway
The Rock Creek Railway was one of the first electric streetcar companies to operate in Washington, D.C. It was incorporated in 1888 and started operations in 1890. After expansion, the line ran from the Cardoza/Shaw neighborhood of D.C. to Chevy Chase Lake, Maryland...

 to carry streetcars. The bridge was a steel trestle bridge with a wooden floor, 750 feet (228.6 m) long and 130 feet (39.6 m) high. To avoid service disruption, the old bridge was moved 80 feet (24.4 m) south during the construction of the Duke Ellington Bridge; however, streetcar service was discontinued before the new bridge opened. The bridge has security fencing because it is a suicide bridge
Suicide bridge
A suicide bridge is a bridge used frequently to die by suicide, most typically by jumping off and into the water below ....

.

Terror Target

Although never directly attacked, the bridge has been targeted with threats several times. One notewourthy threat was September 9, 2011 when a suspicious package was called in. The reason this threat was more "elevated" than others was its close proximity to the tenth anniversary of the September 11th Attacks.

External links


38°55′24"N 77°2′54"W
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