LIONS GATE SUSPENSION SPAS AND PART OF SORTH VIADLOT

_ eee, Park

From page \

actual bridge, and about $1.5 million
for the causeway and related over-
passes.

The first proposal to construct 2
bridge from Prospect Point to the
remote North Shore was made in
1909 by the Burrard Wire Cable
Bridge Company. Because of its
impact on Stanley Park, it was reject-
ed outright.

The 1926 Guinness proposal
received the
same recep-
tion. In
1933, howev-
er, the parks
board
approved the
Guinness’s
second pro-
posal. The
plan had not
improve
much, — bur
the economic
climate had
swirched
from the blue-skies optimism of the
Roaring Twenties to the near desper-
ation of the Dirty Thirties — the
Great Depression.

Thousands were “on relief” in the
city and threatened the stability of all
levels of government. The parks
beard employees themselves had
taken a 10% pay cur in 1932 (if they earned
more than $100 per month) and another 10%
cut in 1933, ‘The best aspect of the new bridge
proposal was that all the money would come
trom deep pockets overseas.

It was now no big deal that it meant slashing
in nwo the already famous Stanley Park. In fact,
only one member of the board voted against the
bridge (he was E.G. Baynes). And, in truth,
park usaye did not decline after the bridge rose.
To the contrary, like a famous New York restau-
rant, it has become so crowded that no one goes
there anymore.

One hundred vears after Queen Vietoria’s
accession to the throne, and a month before the
Golden Gate Bridge opened, construction
began on the substruceure of the Liens Gate
Bridge in April 1937

The initial work comprised logging the
causeway through Stanley Park and on the
North Shore. Substantial trees fell a both
places. Actnal bridge construction began at tive
sites: the nwo anchorages, the two piers and
pedestals for the northern viaduct.

Although the bridge looks symmetrical, the
main piers diifer.

The south pier at Prospect Point consists of
nwo cylindrical caissons 48 feet (14.0 m) in
diameter seated about 30 feet (9 m) below low
water on 9O-million-vear-old sandstune of the
Burrard Formation. It is now classified as part of
the Lower Nanaimo Group and is well exposed
along the seawall between Prospect Point and
Siwash Rock.

The same strara near Nanaimo contained
economic coal beds, but near Stantey Park only
rare thin beds. Nevertheless, they gave rise to

BUILDING
LIQNS GATE
BRIDGE

Wert banaue?

Wednesday. October 22, 1997 - North Shore News — 3

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THE view from the West Van Ferry pier in May 1938 with the bridge behind.

the names Coal Peninsula cthe West End and
Stanley Park, Coal Basin (Lost Lagoon) and
Coal Harbour.

The geologic situanon is much different on
the North Shore where deltaic depusits of thie
Capilano Biver and intercalated manne clay are
very thick,

Tr was nor teasible to seat the north pier on
bedrock. Phere they excavated by dredging
down to 43 feer (19.8 mj below low water and
seated a single large capson -- E17 by 48 feet
(36m by IS imi —, presumably on gravel.

Newspaper reports and photographs of the
construction, however, reter onfv to blue clay
with scattered cobbles -- marine clay deposited
beneath floating glacier ice, which dropped the

cobbles, Depending on the proportions of clay
to gravel, the foundarion could be OK or, per
haps, dog meat for the nest Richter 8-plus
earthquake.

Incidentally, most geological processes do
not cease. Kor thousands of years the Capilano
River has been diligently mving to convert
Burrard Inlet into the more esthetic Burrard
Lake.

Without man’s infernal dredging and dam
building, this determined stream could look for-
ward to completing the job during the current
interglacial stage (and making a bridge unneces-
sary), but now it probably will have to await die
next great onslaught of glacier ice to clear the
meddlers and their works.

Photos courtesy City of Vancouver Archives

BRIDGE workers clamp the cable strands, May 31, 1938. The trespassing warning was meant to deter those who wished to achieve
premature first crossings of the Lions Gate Bridge via the catwalk.

Meanwhile the Capilano River will continue
to dump whatever debris it can get into the First
Narrows and to crowd the tidal currents against
Prospect Point. Eventually, but not very soon,
the sandstone there will be croded away. This
would result in a different slane for the south
tower.

“First steel goes up!” was the headline in the
Vancouver Daily Province of Feb. 2, 1938. That
was after 10 months of work on the substruc-
ture, about half of the total construction time.

‘Phe caption tor the photography showing the
first upright being hoisted into position on the
south pier notes that the engineer in-charge and
fus group had placed their smali change, 35
cents, below the foot steel, where it will remain
until the bridge is dismantled, The money con
sdruted seed money tor the replacement.

The foreman of the steelworkers was
Brown. He had the honor of driving the
nvetofthe Golden Lake Bridge in 1834. Other
experienced workers from the more massive San
Francisco project took part in Lions Gate Bridge
job.

The steel work went quickh. fn fate April
the nwo towers reached their full height of 304
ft. (LEE md above high water, and at high slack
in the early morning of May 2 the most dramat-
i¢ hours of the bridge construction took place.

It was still dark at 4:30 arm. when the First
Narrows was closed to all ships. A huge barge
with four great drums, cach carrying an ¢ight-
ton cable, was moored at the soudh pier, “The
ends of four cables had been attached to the
south shore anchors

See Lady pane 11