A few weeks ago I was heading home from Cahokia and was wondering, as I
passed underneath the east side of the bridge. What street did people use
to access the bridge to get into STL?
+M Williams On the west side there was a ramp that is now the Purina parking lot at 7th and Chouteau. Before the ramp it just used to dump right out onto 7th. You can see what it looked like by looking at past aerial photos in Google Earth. On the east side, it has always dumped out at 10th and Piggot.
+Nathan Colburn Because the revenues generated from tolls would not even pay for the maintenance. Nobody needed to get to the other side because of what was waiting on the other side. 1981 in East Saint Louis was not a good time.
Thank you Rich for all your videos, I just came across them and will watch
all of them as I plan on doing RT66 next September.
Thanks again
Jack Kessel
Franklinville, NJ
You guys take this all so matter of factly...that fucking bridge has been
in my nightmares many times. my mother had to grab me and my brother and
open the door and we rolled down the hill so our father would not kill us...
he drove over the railroad part of the bridge just hoping a train would
come along...
If you are expecting the bridge to be the same today as it was back in the
early 40's, you are wrong...it's not the same...
When i was 18 years old, I rode the Greyhound bus across the same damned
bridge to the station and then walked up the river myself to NORTH AMERICAN
INSURANCE company where i worked...;one day i had enough and went to the
Greyhound ticket office and bought a ticket to LOS ANGELES AND SAID TO HELL
WITH ST. LOUIS AND ALL IT STOOD FOR...
I lived in East St. Louis for many years...I went to DUPO COMMUNITY HIGH
SCHOOL...I lived in the black part of town and it was the black mamas that
cared
for me before my granny got home from work in St. Louis...I was the only
white girl
in the crowd. We would play hop scotch out on Missouri Ave in East St.
Louis, Ill
The black mamas watched me till my Granny got home from working in St.
Louis...
I slept in a bed many nights, me and 6 little black girls...I thought i was
black but my
skin never got dark.
I would walk to school and at the same corner an old black man would step
off the curb and say to me, "Good Morning Little Missy"...and I would say,
"good morning Sir".
and I asked my black mama why he stepped into the street when i approached
him and she said..."Chile, dat old man from de South...you is a little
white girl...Back in the South
he would be hanged from a tree if he didn't step off the sidewalk for you...
and I cried and cried, cause I loved that old black man!!!
East St. Louis was hard...when i got a decent paycheck...I went to the
Greyhound bus station and bought a ticket for Los Angeles. No clothes, no
nothing, just a bus ticket and GET THE HELL OUTA THERE...I HAVE NEVER,
EVER BEEN SORRY...
June in Fortuna, Callifornia [email protected] (if anyone wants to
write me.)
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