The Ellsworth and Lyon Street bridges, and the railroad bridge downriver on Tuesday night.
A few minutes on this pier on Albany’s riverfront Tuesday night made for a brief diversion from the daily routine.
This wooden viewpoint, one of two on the riverfront, is more than thirty years old. (Sorry I can’t remember the year they were built, but it was in the 1980s.) The timbers show their age, and I made sure to test the railing before I leaned against it for the shots in this piece.
Refurbishing the piers is one of the projects included in the proposed design for the Albany Riverfront Project being undertaken by CARA, the downtown urban renewal district.
Whether that project goes ahead or not, those structures are going to need work if we want people to keep enjoying the view of the river from there.
From the standpoint of scenery, the Willamette River and the river bridges are this town’s biggest asset. That’s why the late Dave Clark had those piers built, and why we ought to make sure they are kept in decent shape. (hh)
Thanks to Gordon Steffensmeier’s comment below, this is a corrected version of the story, which originally said the piers were built in the 1990s.
Building the pier decks out of recycled plastic boards (aka Trex, etc) would have been a better idea than wood. Of course I’m sure a rebuild now would be astronomically expensive by the time it was all said and done with bureaucracy costs added in.
The piers were actually built in the 1980s. The piers are both visible in the City’s 1986 aerial photos. That would make them at least 35 years old.