On Saturday I headed downtown, along with a few thousand other people, to attend the dedication of the Veterans’ Glass City Skyway…also known as the I-280 bridge.  I was pretty impressed with how everything was organized and the efficiency with which they transported everyone on and off the bridge.  I was able to park easily, get on a school bus for a ride onto the bridge and, once I got off the bus, wander around, take in the sights and snap pictures.  They seemed to have hired every bus and bus driver that Oregon City Schools and Washington Local Schools had in their fleets, there was a sea of yellow everywhere I looked.

Here’s one of 2 huge open air buildings in the casting yard where the concrete sections for the bridge were manufactured.  The casting yard (near the Toledo Shipyard) is also where most people parked to catch a bus to the bridge.  The second picture shows the bottles of water and Special K water which the Red Cross was handing out as people got off the bus on the bridge.  (I’m curious about who paid for this stuff - hopefully disaster relief funds weren’t involved)

  

Once I hopped off the bus I was greeted pleasantly by people who handed out a nice looking dedication program and what turned out to be a section of ribbon from the spools they used for the official ribbon cutting ceremony.

I then went about looking all around the bridge and snapped the following photos…

   

Here’s how downtown Toledo appears when you are on the bridge – figured I’d share this since while you are zipping by when driving on it you might not have the chance to stare at the city for very long.

 

The National Flag Truck which tours the country carrying GIANT American and state flags for ceremonies and events was on the bridge.  It also seems to have the ability to erect a flagpole from the bed of the truck as there were sections of poles and huge lengths of rope. 

 

This group of volunteers held the American flag as a backdrop for the ceremony.  There was a group on the other side holding a giant Ohio flag as well.  Two of the volunteers were GlassCityJungle.com’s very own Lisa and Miguel.

The ceremony was very nice.  As you would expect there were lots of public officials in attendance and each one had a chance to speak to the gathered (and captive-because the busses stopped for 2 hours) audience.  Among the notable attendees were Gov. Ted Strickland, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur.  The local state senator and state representative as well as the county commissioners and the mayors of Toledo and Oregon were in attendance as well as some ODOT officials.  Each took a few moments to speak and unless I misinterpreted the amount of time he spoke, Gov. Strickland only took up about 3-4 minutes.  He certainly could have talked for much, much longer but he gained my admiration for keeping it short. 

 

At one point the families of the five workers who were killed during construction of the bridge came to the stage and released 5 white doves in remembrance of their loved ones.  This was accompanied by bagpipes and I’ll be darned if I didn’t tear up a bit.  I feel for the spouses of course, but it’s always the thought (and sight) of children that lost their dads that makes me sad.

 

Here’s the governor as he gave the local media an interview (I assume they were only allowing questions about the bridge and not about the missing data on thousands of Ohioans.)

Here’s Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner signing autographs for his citizens.  There were quite a few volunteers for RecallCarty.com on the bridge gathering signatures on petitions and handing out (or selling, I dunno) t-shirts bearing the RecallCarty logo  Do you suppose he signed a program for anyone wearing one of those shirts?   ~

 

Here are Carty, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Ohio State Rep. Peter Ujvagi and Oregon Mayor Marge Brown signing programs.  Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor’s back is turned, she’s wearing the tan suit behind Mayor Brown.

And lastly here are Mayor Brown and Rep. Ujvagi cutting apart pieces of ribbon to distruibute to the guests that bore witness to the dedication ceremony of this grand bridge.

If you are further interested in the details of the day, here is how The Blade covered the story.

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