Between February 2008 and June of 2009, I would stop along the McCullough Avenue bridge near the intersection of North St. Mary's in downtown San Antonio to see the progress on either side of the bridge. I generally took three to four pictures of each side of the bridge, starting with facing north east toward Alamo Heights. The next bridge up the river is Brooklyn Avenue where the lock system is built. The other side of the McCullough bridge faces the south west toward downtown and the next bridge down is Lexington Avenue.
As the work progressed, sometimes very slowly, I posted updates between one every several weeks and a month or so. My time line was dictated by how often I was downtown, and since I only hit my downtown office randomly, there was no set schedule. So in the end, I think this might have been a spiffier project if I had one of those mounted skycams like the news stations use so I could take pictures from the exact spot each time and at a certain time on a particular day each week, but I just don't have the budget or the viewership of KENS-5 or KSAT.
Roughly 16 months compressed into less than 12 minutes.
My River Walk Construction video with music from Strunz & Farah...UPDATED: Added proper music credits and explained what it was you are looking at.
Thursday, I had need to hit the downtown office and decided to take a few pictures of the water, green as it is, now flowing through the section of new river walk I've been following for a while. The location of my interest is at the McCullough Street Bridge near North St. Marys.
This is a little video of the water in action.
And to see all the pictures from start to finish, be sure to check out the set available on the Flickr Page.
I had to make a short trip downtown today yesterday and thought, what the heck, since they claim to be coming really close to finishing our new River Walk extension, it must be worth taking a minute or two to gander over the side of the bridge. From my vantage point at the bridge on McCullough and St Mary's, here are a few pictures.
The landscaping is coming right along with several areas full of green grass, lots of small bushes going and of course, palm trees.
I'm thinking with some good rain, things will fill in nicely. I can almost see the river boats full of fancy tourists floating by while drunk people drop cell phones and beer bottles in the water in appreciation. Good times.
Interestingly enough, there have been several stories about the art going in around the bridges - lots of sculptures and such. Under this bridge, it looks like the artist has made some sort of screens. I know I could probably do a quick search and figure out what he/she was going for, but I'm not that interested, and I'm sort of lazy that way on a Friday afternoon. In spite of not knowing what it is, it looks kinda nice.
Wanna see more? Head on over to the Flickr page to get the full River Walk Construction Experience. Perhaps that can be a new ride at Fiesta Texas next year.
In case you hadn't seen the news, San Antonio has been in a record setting drought this year but in the last two days, we have gotten a wonderful, almost steady stream of the good kind of rain that fills the aquifer and makes the grass turn green.
So today, I had to do some work at my downtown office and thought I would wander over to the River Walk near McCullough and St Mary's, to see how the sudden onset of precipitation had impacted the construction.
Well! I wasn't expecting water in the river! I know, that probably sounds goofy, but if you have been following my river walk construction updates, you know that the water along this stretch of river has been diverted into two huge pipes. Apparently, all this rain was a bit more than the pipes could handle. And look how the brown grass (which I was sure had just withered and died) is totally golf course green.
And of course, other shrubs and plants and trees (except for the palm that looks like it didn't make it) are looking good. The last picture (above, right) shows the end of the water pipe feeding back into the regular river at the Lexington Avenue Bridge. It is flowing pretty darn good! We'll see how long it takes the excess river water to be drained.
Wanna see all the pictures? Of course you do. Head over to the River Walk Construction page on Flickr and see the transformation.
I had to make a short trip downtown today last week and thought, what the heck, it's probably too cold for tourists, so why not see if anything else is going on over the side of the bridge, and in fact, we have some actual progress in our new River Walk extension. From my vantage point at the bridge on McCullough and St Mary's, here are a few pictures.
At least I'm honest enough to tell you that I took the pictures last week but was too busy to upload them in a timely manner. So to save time, I cut and paste from the last time I posted a River Walk Construction Update and even used the same link to the street view. The most important thing to note is the addition of some palm trees going in.
On the other side of the bridge, more of the same - a palm tree going in and not much else.
Oh, look all the way in the center of the picture at the edge of the water. (You can click on it to see it bigger). Is this guy walking on water just for fun? Get back to work, dumbass!
I had to make a short trip downtown today and thought, what the heck, it's probably too cold for tourists, so why not see if anything else is going on over the side of the bridge, and in fact, we have some actual progress in our new River Walk extension. From my vantage point at the bridge on McCullough and St Mary's, here are a few pictures.
The first thing you'll notice new from my last visit is that they have spread some fresh dark soil. And, in spite of the chilly weather, looks like things are starting to grow.
I was especially impressed with the way the stairwells worked out.
Looking further down the dry riverbed toward downtown, it was cool to see an actual barge turning around at the Lexington Avenue Bridge, just a block up.
I had to make a short trip downtown today and thought, what the heck, I haven't looked over the side of the bridge in a while and perhaps it would be a good to take a look at the latest construction of our new River Walk extension. From my vantage point at the bridge on McCullough and St Mary's, here are a few pictures.
Oh and before I forget, there were actual tourists (or attractively dressed homeless people with cameras) walking along the walk, even though the water is still being diverted. When you see actual people on the sidewalk, you get a better appreciation for the size. I know in looking back at the pictures, I have occasionally thought that the project seems much smaller.
This is the view looking toward Alamo Heights. I have liked the style of this project all along. I like that not each set of steps looks the same and there are constant curves along the way. As it goes along, I enjoy the finishing touches too. You can't see it from here, but it looks up close like they have done some good work in welding the handrails and such. 
These views are looking toward downtown. I like the look of the street lamps and can see the landscaping starting to come in - in spite of our recent cold snap. I know, it is tough to handle 50 degrees in the morning.
