The Fifth Street Viaduct or the Fifth Street Bridge, officially the Curtis Holt Sr. Bridge, is a bridge crossing Bacon's Quarter Branch in the Shockoe Valley of

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. It carries automobile and pedestrian traffic between Downtown Richmond's

Jackson Ward Jackson Ward is a historically African-American district in Richmond, Virginia with a long tradition of African-American businesses. It is located less than a mile from the Virginia State Capitol, sitting to the west of Court End and north of Br ...

and Gilpin Court with the North Side's Chestnut Hill and Highland Park.

History

1891 bridge

The first Fifth Street Viaduct, also called the Northside Viaduct, was an iron or steel structure completed in February 1891 for

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport ...

s, which had been introduced in Richmond in 1887. It included a vehicular roadway, a walkway, and double-tracked street railway and was described as "a splendid iron structure 40 feet wide and 1200 feet long, costing about $80,000 ..." in a developer's advertisement at the time. The streetcar line allowed for the development of Chestnut Hill and other

streetcar suburb A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when ...

s north of the deep Shockoe Valley. Masonry remnants of the north abutment of this original bridge are still visible. Fifth Street Viaduct from the south

The first Fifth Street Viaduct or Northside Viaduct was built right through the

Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground The Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground (''Richmond's 2nd African Burial Ground'') was established by the city of Richmond, Virginia, for the interment of free people of color, and the enslaved. The heart of this now invisible burying ground is ...

, which appeared on maps at the time as Potter's Field. Many graves were destroyed in the process.

1933 bridge

The second Fifth Street Viaduct was a reinforced concrete bridge built in 1933 to allow for automobile, streetcar, and pedestrian travel between the neighborhoods of Highland Park and Jackson Ward. The design was drafted by Alfredo C. Janni and the bridge was built by the Richmond Bridge Corporation. The bridge consisted of seven double-span rigid frames supported on expansion piers and stiff towers and was one of five Richmond bridges built during 1933-34 in a major public works program sponsored by the Richmond Bridge Corporation in conjunction with local authorities On December 23, 1933, after several days of preliminary streetcar usage, the Fifth Street Viaduct opened for all forms of travel. The bridge was tolled until August 1935 and the City of Richmond agreed to retire the debt of the Richmond Bridge Corporation through annual cash payments. On July 17, 1941, at the urging of City Council member John Hirshberg, the Fifth Street Viaduct was officially renamed the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Bridge.

Current bridge

The current Fifth Street Viaduct opened in August 1997. In 2000, the name of the bridge was changed to the Curtis Holt Sr. Bridge. The renaming of the bridge was among several such renamings cited as the impetus for a failed 2004 Virginia Assembly bill to restrict such actions in the Commonwealth. Fifth Street Viaduct south end east parapet

Fifth Street Viaduct south end east parapet

References

External links