Whitney Young Memorial Bridge
Encyclopedia
The Whitney Young Memorial Bridge is a bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...

 that carries East Capitol Street
East Capitol Street
East Capitol Street is a major street that divides the northeast and southeast quadrants of Washington, D.C. It runs due east from the United States Capitol to the DC-Maryland border. The street is uninterrupted until Lincoln Park then continues eastward to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium...

 across the Anacostia River
Anacostia River
The Anacostia River is a river in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States. It flows from Prince George's County in Maryland into Washington, D.C., where it joins with the Washington Channel to empty into the Potomac River at Buzzard Point. It is approximately long...

 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....

 Finished in 1955, it was originally called the East Capitol Street Bridge. It was renamed for civil rights activist Whitney Young
Whitney Young
Whitney Moore Young Jr. was an American civil rights leader.He spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban League from a relatively passive civil rights organization into one that aggressively fought for equitable access to...

 in early 1974. The bridge is 1800 feet (548.6 m) long, its six lanes are 82 feet (25 m) wide, and it has 15 spans resting on 14 piers.

Planning

The need for a new bridge spanning the Anacostia River was first identified in 1949 after worsening traffic at Barney Circle
Barney Circle, Washington, D.C.
Barney Circle is a small neighborhood located on the western bank of the Anacostia River in southeast Washington, D.C. The "circle" refers to the traffic circle that intersects Pennsylvania Avenue SE as it crosses the Anacostia...

 led to widespread citizen complaints. The bridge was proposed to cross the Anacostia by extending East Capitol Street over the river. This bridge was opposed by the National Capital Park and Planning Commission
National Capital Planning Commission
The National Capital Planning Commission is a U.S. government agency that provides planning guidance for Washington, D.C. and the surrounding National Capital Region...

 (NCPPC), which asked that a bridge be built by extending Massachusetts Avenue SE
Massachusetts Avenue (Washington, D.C.)
Massachusetts Avenue is a major diagonal transverse road in Washington, D.C., and the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District is a historic district that includes part of it....

 through the undeveloped Hill East/Reservation 13 area and connecting it with its namesake street in the Greenway
Greenway, Washington, D.C.
Greenway is a residential neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. The neighborhood, which is near the eastern bank of the Anacostia River, is a poor one, characterized largely by multiple-family homes and public housing projects....

 neighborhood on the east side of the river. The Commission was supported by an influential group of business people and civic leaders known as the Committee of 100 on the Federal City
Committee of 100 on the Federal City
The Committee of 100 on the Federal City, locally referred to as the Committee of 100, is a private, nonprofit membership organization which promotes "responsible" land use and planning in Washington, D.C. It is one of the oldest citizen-based urban planning groups in the United States, and a...

. D.C. officials, however, opposed this route for fear of the negative effects it would have on nearby Gallinger Hospital (later renamed D.C. General Hospital). On December 29, 1949, the three D.C. Commissioners
District of Columbia home rule
District of Columbia home rule is a term to describe the various means by which residents of the District of Columbia are able to govern their local affairs...

 (then the sole government of the District of Columbia) approved a bridge at East Capitol Street.

But just three weeks later, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge
Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge
The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, otherwise known as the South Capitol Street Bridge, carries South Capitol Street over the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. It was constructed in 1950 and named after abolitionist Frederick Douglass...

 opened across the Anacostia River, alleviating traffic congestion in southeast. A few days later, the NCPPC voted to suspend approval for any new bridge across the Anacostia River until traffic patterns and congestion around the existing bridges were resolved and the need for a new span made clear. Federal engineers said that study would take two months. Members of the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 from the state of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, whose state would be impacted by eastbound traffic from any new bridge, favored the East Capitol Street site and encouraged the D.C. Commissioners to bring the fight to Congress for resolution. In early March 1950, the Subcommittee on District Appropriations of the House Committee on Appropriations
United States House Committee on Appropriations
The Committee on Appropriations is a committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is in charge of setting the specific expenditures of money by the government of the United States...

 turned down a request to fund a study of the Massachusetts Avenue site, and the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments held hearings which supported the D.C. Commissioners. The Subcommittee on the District of Columbia estimated that reconstructing ramps and reconfiguring traffic patterns around existing bridges would cost $9.5 million, while building a new bridge would cost about the same. Federal highway officials also testified that the bridge would help ease access to Maryland Route 214
Maryland Route 214
Maryland Route 214 is an east–west state highway that runs through Prince George's County and Anne Arundel County within the U.S. state of Maryland. Central Avenue runs along the center of Prince George's County and divides it into north and south...

, which was originally planned to connect with the Baltimore–Washington Parkway at the District line but which had been forced into a more southerly direction. Members of Congress inspected both the Massachusetts Avenue SE and East Capitol Street sites, and the House Subcommittee approved the East Capitol span in mid-March 1950.

A $395,000 contract studying the two sites was granted to the J.E. Greiner Co. of Baltimore, Maryland, on September 9, 1950. The company was also asked to study whether the approaches from the west to the East Capitol Street span would travel along that street or be divided between Independence Avenue SE and C Street NE. D.C. highway officials gave their approval to the East Capitol Street span on May 1, 1950. The Greiner Co. had recommended a $2.7 million steel plate girder bridge
Plate girder bridge
A plate girder bridge is a bridge supported by two or more plate girders. The plate girders are typically I-beams made up from separate structural steel plates , which are welded or, in older bridges, bolted or riveted together to form the vertical web and horizontal flanges of the beam...

. The bridge was designed to pass under Minnesota Avenue SE and the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad tracks on the east side of the river and connect with Kenilworth Avenue NE. The cost of the eastern approaches was estimated at $6.7 million. The western approaches would split over Kingman Island and connect Independence Avenue SE and C Street NE. Work on the western approaches was estimated at $2.3 million. The NCPPC approved the plan on May 10, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...

 did so on August 20. But after a final site visit from the NCPPC in September 1951, the approaches were moved slightly westward. The new approaches required dredging 650000 cubic yards (496,960.7 m³) from Kingman Lake
Kingman Lake
Kingman Lake is a artificial lake located in the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C., in the United States. The lake was created in 1920 when the United States Army Corps of Engineers used material dredged from the Anacostia River to create Kingman Island...

 and replacing it with sand and gravel to create a gently curving peninsula that extended 800 feet (243.8 m) into the western side of the lake. 1300000 cubic yards (993,921.3 m³) of fill would be used to raise the peninsula 35 feet (10.7 m) above the low water mark, and the western approaches built on the new land.

Construction

Bids for the entire $12 million construction project were solicited on May 23, 1952. The Arlington, Virginia, firm of J.A. LaPorte Inc. won the dredging contract, and the D.C. firm of Morauer & Hartzell won the fill contract. The work was expected to take 15 months. The NCPPC approved the city's plans to connect the new bridge to Kenilworth Avenue NE on December 13, 1952, and a $5.5 million plan to widen Kenwilworth Avenue into a divided, 10-lane freeway on March 24, 1953. D.C. officials paid $250,000 to buy the land for the exit ramps onto Kenilworth Avenue. Construction on the western approaches was blocked for a month after residents of Suitland, Maryland, (upset by loud trucks passing down their streets) won a month-long restraining order against the project so that contractors could devise and implement a noise-abatement program.

Construction on the bridge itself began in 1953. Baltimore Contractors, Inc. won the $1.2 million contract to build the bridge's substructure, and DeLuca Davis Construction (also of Baltimore) won the $2.2 million contract to the build the superstructure. District officials sought approval from Congress to spend $4.3 million in District of Columbia highway budget funds in September 1953. The city also applied for $4.2 million in federal matching highway funds to help finish the bridge. Driving of piles for the foundation began in December 1953. About 120 individuals helped construct the bridge deck.

All the substructure and most up the superstructure had been completed by August 1954. Widening of East Capitol Street east of the river was also completed in 1954. Completion was expected in October 1955. By late September 1954, 73 percent of the superstructure had been completed and only stone protections for the piers remained to be finished for the substructure. District transportation officials also said that ramps and overpasses for the Kenilworth Avenue exits were almost complete by this time as well, but the railroad track underpass (being built by S. Wikstrom Co.) was only 46 percent complete and not due for final work until November 1955. Officials said the bridge would open once Kenny Construction finished connecting the railroad underpass to East Capitol Street in the east.

Kenny Construction began work on the final $2.3 million phase of the bridge project on November 6, 1954. Work was due to end in 540 days. The Greenway Apartments‎ (located at 3539 A Street SE) obtained an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...

 in February 1955 stopping work for a month on the project after alleging that the excavations for the road would affect the foundation of their building.

The East Capitol Street Bridge opened on November 10, 1955. Tippy Stringer, a local television personality at WRC-TV
WRC-TV
WRC-TV, channel 4, is an owned and operated television station of the NBC television network, located in the American capital city of Washington, D.C...

 (and later the wife of NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 news anchor Chet Huntley
Chet Huntley
Chester Robert "Chet" Huntley was an American television newscaster, best known for co-anchoring NBC's evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, for 14 years beginning in 1956.-Early life:...

), cut the ribbon opening the bridge. Metropolitan Police Department
Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia
The Metropolitan Police Department, also known as the DC Police, DCPD, MPD, and MPDC is the municipal police force in Washington, D.C...

 Chief Robert V. Murray drove the first vehicle across the bridge. About 300 people attended the ceremony, which was held in a driving rain. Also present were all three D.C. Commissioners and Rep. George Hyde Fallon (chair of the House Committee on Public Works
United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
The U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. John Mica currently chairs the committee.-History:...

).

Bridge history and renaming

The East Capitol Street Bridge saw its first suicide when one-legged 48-year-old Adolphius L. Groom leapt from the bridge on the morning of July 13, 1967. The first major accident on the bridge occurred on March 7, 1969, when two vehicles collided head-on on the span, killing two people. Another major crash occurred on September 18, 1971, when a vehicle on the bridge was rear-ended, killing one of the occupants. In October 1977, a man traveling at high speed across the bridge rear-ended another automobile and died. Another suicide occurred on December 16, 1986, when a man leapt from the bridge and landed on a moving vehicle below. Another traffic fatality occurred on the bridge on November 13, 1986, when a driver struck a disabled vehicle on the bridge and was himself rear-ended by a third car. In February 1990, an ambulance taking a patient to the hospital was struck on the bridge by an automobile traveling at about 100 mph, leaving the driver and passenger in the vehicle in critical condition.

The bridge was also the scene of a famous rape and murder in D.C. history. On October 1, 1971, Richard Anthony Lee was accused of kidnapping Robert L. Ammidown and his wife, Linda E. Ammidown; forcing them to drive to the East Capitol Street Bridge overpass above the railroad tracks; and raping and killing Linda Ammidown. Police later learned that Robert Ammidown had hired Lee to kill Linda in a plot to inherit her substantial fortune and win custody of their 12-year-old son. Four men who had learned of the plot were attempting to extort money from Ammidown. In separate trials, Judge John J. Sirica found Ammidown and Lee guilty of murder. Ammidown received a sentence of life in prison, but Lee received the death penalty
Capital punishment in the United States
Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...

. Eight days after sentence was imposed, the United States Supreme Court held in Furman v. Georgia
Furman v. Georgia
Furman v. Georgia, was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. The case led to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment throughout the United States, which came to an end when Gregg v. Georgia was...

, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) that death penalty laws in the United States constituted cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing criminal punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering or humiliation it inflicts on the condemned person...

 and thus were unconstitutional
Constitutionality
Constitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution. Acts that are not in accordance with the rules laid down in the constitution are deemed to be ultra vires.-See also:*ultra vires*Company law*Constitutional law...

. Lee's sentence was changed to life in prison. The Court later upheld new death penalty laws in Gregg v. Georgia
Gregg v. Georgia
Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 153 , reaffirmed the United States Supreme Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon...

, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). The Ammidown/Lee trial was the last death penalty case in the District of Columbia. (The District of Columbia abolished the death penalty in 1981.)

A federal report in March 1972 listed the East Capitol Street Bridge as one of several "deficient" bridges needing repair in the District of Columbia. D.C. officials disagreed with the report's conclusions, arguing they had not submitted complete data on the bridge.

In early 1974, the East Capitol Street Bridge was renamed the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Bridge in honor of civil rights activist and National Urban League
National Urban League
The National Urban League , formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest...

 Executive Director Whitney Young
Whitney Young
Whitney Moore Young Jr. was an American civil rights leader.He spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban League from a relatively passive civil rights organization into one that aggressively fought for equitable access to...

.

In 1980, District officials spent $8.5 million reconstructing the deck of the bridge. The bridge was carrying about 56,000 vehicles a day at that time. One side of the span was closed at a time, with two-way traffic proceeding on the open portion.

In 1982, D.C. officials proposed building the Barney Circle Freeway, which would have linked Interstate 695
Interstate 695 (District of Columbia)
Interstate 695 is the unsigned designation for the 1.39-mile Southeast Freeway in Washington, D.C. It runs from Interstate 395 south of the United States Capitol building east past the north end of Interstate 295 to Pennsylvania Avenue at Barney Circle, just northwest of the John Philip Sousa...

 (which dead-ended at a junction with Pennsylvania Avenue SE
Pennsylvania Avenue
Pennsylvania Avenue is a street in Washington, D.C. that joins the White House and the United States Capitol. Called "America's Main Street", it is the location of official parades and processions, as well as protest marches...

) to the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge by building a six-lane freeway from Barney Circle to the bridge through Anacostia Park
Anacostia Park
Anacostia Park is operated by the United States National Park Service. It is one of Washington, D.C.'s largest and most important recreation areas, with over 1200 acres at multiple sites. Included in Anacostia Park is Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens and Kenilworth Marsh...

. The plan would also have built a new bridge across the Anacostia River from Barney Circle to connect with the Anacostia Freeway
Interstate 295 (District of Columbia)
Interstate 295 in the U.S. state of Maryland and in Washington, D.C. is a spur route connecting I-95/I-495 and Maryland Route 210 on the Potomac River to Interstate 695 in downtown Washington.-Route description:Although I-295 technically begins at the Capital Beltway , a pair of mainline...

 near E Street SE. After numerous delays and strong citizen opposition, the Barney Circle Freeway project was cancelled in 1997.

The bridge continued to have work done as it neared a half century of use. In 1996, the last year the city collected traffic data on the structure, 66,200 vehicles per day used the bridge. The roadway's condition was noticeably rough in 1997. In 2004, the District of Columbia resurfaced the deck and made repairs to three piers at a cost of $3.4 million. In 2009, the Federal Highway Administration
Federal Highway Administration
The Federal Highway Administration is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two "programs," the Federal-aid Highway Program and the Federal Lands Highway Program...

's National Bridge Inventory
National Bridge Inventory
The National Bridge Inventory is a database, compiled by the Federal Highway Administration, with information on all bridges and tunnels in the United States that have roads passing above or below. This is similar to the grade crossing identifier number database compiled by the Federal Railroad...

 rated the bridge as "not deficient." The District of Columbia Department of Transportation
District of Columbia Department of Transportation
The District of Columbia Department of Transportation is an agency of the government of the District of Columbia which manages and maintains publicly-owned transportation infrastructure in the District of Columbia...

estimated that by 2015, the bridge would be carrying only about 60,000 vehicles per day—about 10 percent fewer than in 1996.
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