Paul Nutting got to his office early this morning and got to see part of the Long Island bridge floating through Boston Harbor as crews work to take down the current span so it can be replaced one of these years.
Nick Cimetti got a closeup shot of the bridge segment under full steam:
Around 8:20 a.m., Suzanne McDaniel spotted the bridge segment docked on the Mystic River:
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The bridge on Sunday
By adamg
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 9:12am
We took a walk around Castle Island on Sunday; here's the bridge segment that's now on the Mystic:
A quibble - the lyric is not
By Steve Stein
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 9:28am
A quibble - the lyric is not "there goes the Robert E Lee" as if it were some conveyance. It's "there goes Robert E Lee", as in the General himself.
Hmm ...
By adamg
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 10:48am
Maybe in the Band version, but I'm a Joan Baez kinda guy, and she definitely sings the Robert E. Lee, as if it were a ship (I've always pictured some elegant paddle wheeler), which would make sense given the complaint that follows in the next lines:
Wikipedia footnote: "The Last
By Steve Stein
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 10:59am
Wikipedia footnote: "The Last Waltz of The Band Neil Minturn - 2005- Page 85 "be more familiar to some in Joan Baez's version. Hoskyns remarks of Baez's cover: "Two years later, Joan Baez recorded a terrible version of 'Dixie' that seemed to turn Robert E. Lee into a steamboat"
Misheard lyrics
By johnmcboston
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 11:44am
Seems JB was a victim of misheard lyrics as well. Form the Wikipedia entry: "Baez later told Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder that she initially learned the song by listening to the recording on the Band's album, and had never seen the printed lyrics at the time she recorded it, and thus sang the lyrics as she'd (mis)heard them. In more recent years in her concerts, Baez has performed the song as originally written by Robertson."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_They_Drove_...
Odd, no idea why she added the "the."
By Virgil Kane
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 12:26pm
It doesn't really make sense. Why would someone say "quick, come see" some boat?
...but wait! Wikipedia says it was the name of a steamboat, and that's what the song refers to.
See the "In Popular Culture" section
Indeed, you can hear the "the" in the "Last Waltz" rendition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jREUrbGGrgM
Well, learn something new every day.
The way I always pictured it
By adamg
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 12:35pm
He's down on the south 40 choppin' wood (or mud, or whatever it is Baez sang), when his wife, up on the north 40 along the river, sees this paddle wheeler come steaming by and calls for him to hurry up and see it. And then he sees the name plate and gets all sad and stuff.
You know, sorta like some woman standing on Long Wharf sees the Long Island bridge (or a big chunk of it) go floating by and calls up her husband on speed dial to get him to rush down to see it :-).
Pretty sure you nailed it, Adam.
By Sally
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 1:55pm
I love this song--the Band version, not Joan--and have always heard it as "the Robert E. Lee" and assumed it referred to a steamboat or something. I don't think Lee was just meandering around post-war Tennessee. Here's what a random Google turned up. http://www.answers.com/Q/Was_Robert_E_Lee_in_Tenne...
Answers.com is about as good
By Dave
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 3:33pm
Answers.com is about as good a reference as asking a random person coming out of a bar.
Here's a better article: http://theband.hiof.no/articles/dixie_viney.html
Hence the phrase "random Google"
By Sally
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 4:50pm
But common sense and your ears can confirm. Listen to the song--you can hear the "the" perfectly clearly in the Last Waltz live version. And why on earth would the defeated Robert E. Lee be rambling around some backwoods farm?
As the article indicates....
By Michael Kerpan
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 5:37pm
... Lee sightings in unlikely places were sort of like "Elvis sightings". ;-}
In the original, there's no
By Dave
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 5:50pm
In the original, there's no "the", though Helm sort of says "uh-Robert" if you listen closely. He seems to have added "the" in the Last Waltz but there was a lot of marching powder around by then. ;)
As for common sense, I don't envision it as Lee rambling around but more like his cavalcade passing by on the road. I wonder if there's an article where Robertson answers the question?
Island End River
By rb
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 12:57pm
To be hyper-specific, the inlet where the bridge is docked, presumably for dismantling, is known as the Island End River.
It will probably be ground up at the Everett scrapyard and then sent to China or Turkey to be melted down and sold back to us.
Speaking of Bridges...
By anon
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 2:28pm
Notice how Boston 2024's pretty artist rendering of Fort Port Channel dressed up for the Olympics features a restored Northern Avenue Bridge? (You, know, the one the city closed in December for lack of funds for repairs?) Boston 2024 maintains that every piece of infrastructure they need for the Olympics has already been approved for funding. Right.
The Night
By roadman
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 9:34am
They Closed The Homeless Shelter Down
And all the displaced folks were screaming
Where's that confounded bridge...?
By John-W
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 9:39am
Take it to the Bridge! Take it to the Bridge! aw...fuckit, take the bridge to it....
Troubled Bridge Over Water? A Bridge Too Far...Gone? Bridge of Suffolk County?
I wonder if it's destined for the salvage yard on Nay Street just up the Chelsea Creek?
Just In Time
By cybah
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 9:47am
Just in time for the Olympics!
*eye roll*
Don't Rebuild!
By SteveM
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 10:07am
Still don't see a need to replace it. How silly it was to even construct a bridge to Long Island in the first place. Use boats to access the island like all most other harbor islands and move the shelter and other island tenants elsewhere. It is not a sustainable location. It's a money pit.
Little history
By John Costello
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 11:25am
The island was used as a chronic hospital and a military base for a long time. It was a Nike defensive missile base in the 50's, just in case the Ruskies came up President Roads. You needed quick access to the island and as this winter has shown, boats aren't always available. The thought process of using the island was very different than it is today. Times change. The bridge served nearly 60 years. Not a bad investment from a non-revenue generating piece of equipment.
As far as moving the shelter elsewhere, Please post your address in reply, we can contact city planners about opening the homeless shelter next to you since you are so willing to relocate it.
Have the Olympics at Long
By anon
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 11:46am
Have the Olympics at Long Island! Then it can be a year round recreational / training facility for the masses to enjoy - no displacement , no immense by domain, the island gets spruced up bridge gets replaced and the event can be controlled ... Then people can come back to enjoy the city amenities as well as in surrounding areas on new the the areas newly updated public transportation including awesome new ferry service. Wow ! Problem solved !
wasn't that the plan straight along?
By kitty
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 9:06pm
Makes sense. Many of us seemed to think the displacement of the homeless, social service agencies were done to make way for other purposes
For Reals
By Suldog
Thu, 02/26/2015 - 8:15am
The Olympic plans being bandied about do have a provision for using Long Island as an Olympic base. It will be for shooting contests. The bridge would be restricted to Olympic use only during the Olympics.
Boston Herald, 2/19
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Find out what Koch and his
By Lmo
Thu, 02/26/2015 - 3:12am
Find out what Koch and his constituents think about that and get back to us.
It's already been relocated
By SteveM
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 12:52pm
It's already been relocated to Southampton St, the old BTD Operations Center. It would cost much less to make that permanent than build a new bridge to serve a few buildings on an island. There's even more room there to expand if they want to.
Re little history
By Ann Weatherbee
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 2:45pm
Thanks John,
Your comment is right on.
They should never have taken the very best--I mean worst
By Laura82
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 10:12am
Well, now that song will be in my head all day.
Our very own Bridge
By jay
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 10:32am
to Nowhere
Bridge?
By Suldog
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 10:59am
I bid one club (full of Olympics backers, in plush leather chairs, sipping on cognac and congratulating themselves on the ongoing progress.)
Suldog (who knows U-Hub commenters can keep the bidding going)
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Having a casino on the island
By anon
Wed, 02/25/2015 - 1:50pm
Having a casino on the island would have paid for the bridge. This would have been ideal with ferry service to the casino on the island. The biggest mistake was putting that stupid camp on the island with those programs from mental illness, sex offenders, etc for those so-called at risk kids. The camp only serves a few hundred kids for a couple of weeks instead of having a summer program in the community that help kids stay busy for the entire summer. A couple of weeks are not going to keep these kids out of trouble.
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