NEAR AND DEAR AND IN DISREPAIR//PHALEN PARK'S PRETTY, YET DECREPIT, ARCH BRIDGE MAY NOT BE AN ARCHITECTURAL JEWEL, BUT IT IS A NEIGHBORHOOD TREASURE. FOR ADMIRERS, THAT'S REASON ENOUGH FOR A MUCH-NEEDED OVERHAUL.

Published on 05/28/2007

Tag:
Section: Local
Page: B1

Byline: BY JASON HOPPIN, Pioneer Press

ST. PAUL - It's a crumbling link to the past, but Phalen Park's picturesque stone arch bridge may be getting a makeover.

Supporters are seeking $1.6 million to overhaul the 97-year-old bridge, which is intertwined with the park's history but suffering the ravages of weather, time and neglect.

"The city has invested a lot of money in Como Park and Harriet Island, which are all great investments for the city. But we think the time has come to invest in Phalen Park," said Richard Kramer, a city planning commissioner who heads Friends of Lake Phalen.

The bridge has little architectural significance and no longer serves as a roadway for cars. But it has one thing going for it that other projects don't: It's darned pretty, and, over time, it has become a cherished East Side fixture.

The project recently received the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission's "Vote of Confidence" award, given annually to an upcoming project. More important, it is on a list of projects to be funded through the city's capital improvements program, though the list has not been finalized.

"People feel so sentimental about the bridge that fixing it is the right thing to do," said Janice Quick, an East Sider who has been working on a book titled "Phalen Lake: Facts, Folks and Photos" since 1961, when she was 11 years old.

Built in 1910 and believed to be the second-oldest structure in Phalen Park, the bridge was designed by a firm headed by the well-known engineer C.A.P. Turner, who also designed the Mendota Bridge and the Aerial Ferry Bridge in Duluth.

It was integral to the city's original vision of Phalen as a pastoral, aquatic park, complete with a grand canal connecting Phalen with Lake Gervais, and a flock of sheep, a shepherd and a sheep dog to keep the grass trimmed.

But the disrepair has gotten so bad, the city has fenced off the canal below the bridge to keep boaters from passing underneath and has blocked the surface with concrete abutments to keep city and emergency vehicles from using its roadway.

A rusty water main sits on top, and the bridge surface is pitted and chipped. Water regularly leaks into the interior, and graffiti is common.

Phalen used to be more central to the city's civic life. Fourth of July fireworks displays and fishing contests were held there. The 1986 Winter Carnival ice palace was located there, and carnival snowmobile races once zipped beneath the bridge.

And the bridge played a role in East Side lore. Located on the site of a 1905 wooden span, the bridge crosses over to a man-made island. At the beginning of the 20th century, the island was home to a carnival that closed after three years, in part because of a loud calliope, or steam organ, that rattled surrounding neighborhoods.

A concrete bridge was installed in 1910, and though it often was featured in postcards of the era, it began deteriorating almost immediately. During the Depression, the Civil Works Administration clad the bridge in limestone.

Through the 1940s, it was a popular wedding spot until the city put the brakes on the practice -- too many overlapping wedding parties. Keeping up family traditions, many new brides and grooms still take their wedding pictures there.

Until the 1970s, it was a vehicle bridge, part of a road that encircled the lake and served as a gathering place for East Side youths, who would spend weekend nights cruising. Eventually, the city broke up the road as part of a series of park renovations.

"People were tired of me and all my hoodlum friends, who would drive around the lake without stopping," Quick sighed.

Along with cosmetic improvements, the bridge project includes efforts to stabilize the foundation and reconstruct the deck, which will be lowered as a way to increase the height of the railings.

If the project is given final approval, work is not expected to begin until 2009.

Jason Hoppin can be reached at jhoppin@pioneerpress.com or 651-292-1892

I, for one, didn't miss it this year - that ever so brief time to get over to Lake Phalen for a walk around before the ice disappears.

Most people were surely wishing for it to begone, already.

But not me.

No, that quick, fleeting period produces one of the lake's notable annual events, when the crenellated edges of the melting and disappearing ice partners with the incessant wind and, between the two, produces an ethereal sound - like the sound of an orchestra comprised of a million tiny bells.

In order to hear it, of course, you must have plenty of wind. And let me tell you: we had plenty of wind to power the orchestra this year.

You must also have the temperature bordering between freezing and thawing - but inevitably tipping toward thaw. If you are very quiet and patient you will hear all of it - the overture where the wind whistles alone, like a solo motif and blowing everything before it - the allegro movement then wells up with the wind and the ice creating an intricate interplay back and forth - and finally the crashing finale where the ice has jammed up on itself - usually at the south end of the lake. Timpani never had such a score to perform.

More movements and melodies are in store for you during this spring symphony, of course. Amble along quietly, and it still might not be too late for you to notice another one-time only event which is now occurring - the loons are back. They come walloping in, landing with a huge thud with much calling and laughing. They finally have their lake back and summertime and warmth and all of the other Minnesota pleasures may begin again. They arrive with such force and such confidence that you wonder how they knew the lake has just opened for the season.

Now that you have focused on the loons you will notice there are many other water birds also in sight and paddling back and forth: Canadian geese having a few quick ones as they continue north; Mallards shyly looking over each other and the surrounding territory to see if they should continue on or stay for the season; Mergansers nervously flitting here and there; and finally coots - usually many coots - all bobbing their heads in unison as they gossip watching as the big guys land and depart. It reminds you of afternoon planes landing and taking off at the airport with everyone rushing to get to and fro. I have never figured out why there is always such a rush there. Is adrenalin pumped into the airport air to make people move along? Will their suitcases melt - like ice cubes caught between the store and the freezer? Or, like the birds, are they just anxious to get to their final destination.

And speaking of destinations, occasionally you will have the great luck to see a snow goose that somehow finds itself way off course on Lake Phalen and obviously needing to get to the far western regions of the state to find like minded and like colored goose buddies. Snow geese are almost all white. They stand out in this migratory crowd and for this brief intermission they are the only white birds in the neighborhood. Egrets have not arrived yet. You can tell they are snow geese if they have a touch of black on their wing tips and which you can only see when they fly. In any event, they need a better travel agent.

Further along the lake you might be lucky to see a muskrat swimming back and forth and gathering twigs and such for a spring lunch. This is a busy time for them so they only stop now and then to look at the confusion of the arriving and departing birds. They have not returned from warmer climes but have suffered through the same late winter storms that you and I have. But I don't think they are as impatient as we are for spring - they seem their usual industrious selves as they paddle along.

By now you should be a good way around the lake. You should be aware of the plantings between you and the shoreline. They are already sending out a green bud here and a soft shoot there. It has been quite a few years since the shoreline restoration began and the wind rustles through the stiff remaining stalks from last year's successes. Soon it will be hard to realize that this bare no man's land had ever been. Delicate wild flowers will nod in the spring warmth.

Bees and dragonflys will flit back and forth. Mallards will nest in protected little pockets, mini caves formed when roots plunge down to the water.

Everything acting in harmony and tuning up for the big Spring symphony.

But back to reality. That is not now, not quite yet. Spring will be when the weather becomes warm and the wind is in check. Already today people can cheer the retreat of the ice, the integral part of my favorite symphony. But I know to be patience, to wait for when the score returns to be played again next year.