On April 21, 2018, I visited the Talbot Avenue Bridge in
Silver Spring, Maryland. The bridge, which spans the CSX Railroad tracks, has
for the last century been the main connection between the largely
African-American community of Lyttonsville and the more upscale
white neighborhoods across the tracks, as well as the Georgia Avenue corridor
into the District of Columbia.
The gathering on the bridge
The occasion for my visit was the installation of a “pop-up
park” on the bridge by my colleague and friend, historian David Rotenstein, who
has made it his business to remind us here in liberal Montgomery County – and
coincidentally in my birthplace, Decatur, Georgia – of our Jim Crow traditions.
Perhaps a hundred people attended. David and his colleagues had affixed
interpretive placards to the bridge rails, and there was a “conversation
corner” where people could share stories about the bridge and their
communities. There were speeches, by David and by elders of the
African-American community. The elders talked of the role the bridge had played
in the life of their community, as essentially their only connection with the
outside world and the larger society and economy.
Why was the event staged? Because the century-old bridge
will soon be demolished to make way for the “Purple Line,” a largely federally
funded rapid transit project. Katherine Shaver’s September 24, 2016 story in
the Washington Post tells the tale:
see https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/a-bridge-that-linked-black-and-white-neighborhoods-during-segregation-soon-will-be-lost-to-history/2016/09/24/59df40dc-7ab0-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html?utm_term=.f88831912344.
Lyttonsville elder Charlotte Coffield (L) confers with
David Rotenstein (R). The white taped line symbollically
represented the division between Black (B) and White (W) communities
A couple of the placards recounted the history of the Purple
Line’s environmental impact assessment under Section 102(c) of the National
Environmental Policy Act and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation
Act. In the course of this assessment, based on a consultant’s report, the
bridge was found eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, but
only as a work of engineering. Its sociocultural significance seems to have
been entirely ignored.
I take it that the existing Talbot Avenue Bridge will be
replaced by a modern structure capable of spanning the widened railroad tracks,
so the connective tissue it represents will be maintained. And history has
moved on; Montgomery County is no longer the segregated set of communities it
once was (though in these difficult times, even here segregationist attitudes
occasionally resurface). So maybe losing the bridge is no big deal. But damn,
people, is it really right for a property like the Talbot Avenue Bridge to be
evaluated for the National Register, and hence considered under Section 106, purely
as a piece of engineering? Should its traditional cultural value not have been
considered, leading in this case – perhaps – to a more respectful outcome?
Among the "popup park's" markers
I know, there’s King flapping his lips again about
traditional cultural places. And this time after the fact. No argument; I just
think it’s sad that once again Section 106 review – and NEPA review – of
impacts on a place of cultural significance to a community has been
short-circuited by narrowminded application of the National Register criteria.
I guess I should be used to it by now.
