What’s happened to the Eleanor Schonell bridge?
Posted on October 15th, 2007, under Out in Vegas
In December it will be a year since the Dutton Park ferry service was decommissioned to make way for the $55 million pedestrian, cyclist and Brisbane City Council bus-serviced “Green Bridge”. Officially named the Eleanor Schonell Bridge, perhaps because someone noticed hubby Fred already had his own theatre and road leading into St Lucia’s UQ campus, the bridge has significantly reoriented my daily routine over the past year. The 407 “Rocket” is no longer running, despite its appealing intergalactic title (and sometimes it does feel like I’m travelling to another planet when I’m trying to get to that particularly privileged bend in the river). It’s been replaced by the 109 limited stops from UQ Lakes to the City, as well as a bunch of services to the southern suburbs. I find it a city-wide, unspoken shame that Eleanor’s bridge opened after Fred’s cinema was closed, because it seems likely that one would have saved the business of the other. But that - along with the decline of campus culture and night life generally in the wake of VSU - is another story.
I don’t live on the south side, so unfortunately I can’t take advantage of the “Kiss and Ride” drop-off zone of a morning. But what a concept! From New Farm, travelling to UQ is a long but beautiful endeavor if you stick to the water: at this time of year the journey takes me from the blooming jacarandas at one side of the city to be met by a new family of ducks or a hungry flock of cockatoos greeting me by the lake at the other. When I arrive to scenes like this I have a hard time imagining a more beautiful place to work… at least until I head into an over air-conditioned, flourescently-lit tower and the demands of an Outlook Inbox.
For the first time today I walked over the bridge to work and was confused to find that none of the water bubblers were working. I tried
every
one,
and the most success I had was this:
I would have written this off as a drought-related water saving measure if one of the bridge’s key features wasn’t also out of service; the touch-screen story boards telling about the local area have been broken for months on end.
With the temperature already very warm in Brisbane heading in to summer, I wonder when the council plans to fix the water supply? Why is the bridge being left broken and neglected?
In December it will also be a year since the opening of GOMA and the redeveloped State Library of Queensland, two buildings that are also over-air-conditioned for my feeble thermostat, but which embrace the light and the sky and the feel of Brisbane like no other buildings I’ve seen or imagined possible. (The recently renovated Powerhouse comes close, but it still manages to convey a sense of being a little bit exclusive in parts.)
It’s wonderful to watch these grand new spaces gradually becoming inhabited: by cultured gentlemen snooping through expensive art books in the gallery store on the weekend, international students skype-ing loved ones with free wi-fi, yummy mummies inflicting babychinos on their poor children at the cafe, seniors meeting for cinema club on Sunday afternoon, the little skater dudes being shooed away from the enticing outdoor facades by SLQ security guards.
I have a new favourite cafe that lets me look out at the river through Moreton Bay Figs and laugh at the Riverside “Expressway” with its commuters stuck in gridlock. It sells everything in picnic boxes and you can borrow a rug and the paper while you eat on the grass.
This is the Brisbane I’m learning to live and love in. It might even be fair to say that these three pieces of infrastructure have made the difference between me wondering if I can live here, and believing it. If you haven’t tried them yet, they deserve your patronage. And can you help me make sure they’re looked after, please?
On October 16th, 2007 at 4:39 pm, kiley said:
I too lament the slow degradation of the green bridge (I still don’t understand eleanor’s role in the whole affair). The poetic fragments etched in concrete only add to its neo-nostalgic, slightly dystopic ambience.
As for GOMA, I was there again last week to take in Daphne Mayo visiting scholar James Meyer’s lecture “What is Contmeporary Art [History]?”. Apart from the ongoing nightmares bought on by the somatic shock of seeing/hearing tyrone noonan ‘do’ jazz in the forecourt during the opening week celebrations, the whole place is too austere for me. Maybe its the adolescent trees, too white concrete and emphasis on ‘zones’ that makes it more a port of call rather than a destination for me.
Aside from all that, how do you differentiate between a yummy mummy and a milf? I’m torn between which to aspire to. I preferred milfs when they were slightly overweight older women who had sex with younger men and videotaped it but now Tori Amos has co-opted it into some whole ‘mutton dressed as celtic lamb’ thing she has going on.
On October 16th, 2007 at 5:15 pm, Jason W said:
I am totally into the slq and GOMA, and feel I must defend their honour from Kiley’s base slurs
Particularly the slq, I think. I worked in some of the “world’s great libraries” while in Europe, but mostly they were dank, exclusive, charged loads for wireless, were full of surly people and had expensive caffs.
The slq, by contrast, has been “wrapped” beautifully in the redevelopment, and as Mel says, the light and sense of space are really inspiring. As a place to work, I’d take it into the Pepsi challenge with the British Library or the Bibliotheque National anytime.
And I think it’s important, when we can look around anytime and get upset about the public spaces that are disappearing, to distribute the pats on backs when something is done well. Sure, Premier Pete left us without water, enough hospitals, or sufficient infrastructure for our expanding population, but I’ll remember him fondly for at least having this special surprise waiting for me when I returned to Brisbane.
On October 17th, 2007 at 7:41 am, Neddy said:
I love the Green Bridge because it teases me to jump off the bus at Wooloongabba and go to a) Caro Mio for tea b) Samios for supplies or maybe one day soon …. c) afk ‘defrag yourself’ for some defragging and WoW (thanks Jason).
I also love zooming through Dutton Park and remembering when there was no Coles in West End and having to go to Fairfield. Funny! And I love the ‘photo’ district in Dutton Park … a Leica sign on the horizon and the decrepit camera supplies store. I haven’t walked or ridden the bridge yet. But will remember to take bottled water!
I have been on a total trip lately about going to parts of Brisbane that I don’t just happen to go to all the time. This involves some investigating of the south side and places like Graceville for Thai!
On October 17th, 2007 at 9:53 am, sajbrfem said:
I recently read an interesting post about the neglect of public water fountains as a metaphor/sign of the trend away from community and towards individualization.
Also, the cafe sounds fabulous!
On October 17th, 2007 at 12:21 pm, kiley said:
I’m waiting for the cultural precinct to get a little less precious I suppose. This year, I have acquired a new group of parent friends through Zelig’s class and three of them work at goma, which is kind of statistically anomalous I thought. Paul is also doing some work there with music at the moment so maybe I’m a little too close, socially and physically. I think the whole gentrification of that site is tied to some nostalgic idea of west end that comes with living here too long and so all that newness is just too forest lakes for me. Also, besides Avid Reader and Indian Kitchen, GOMA and the Museum are zelig’s favourite places in Brisbane so we do spend considerable time there.
I too love the bridge although I’m a walker more than a passenger. I did discover the 109 however just after it opened and have been praising its virtues since. It is so much more economical, both temporally and environmentally, than the old st lucia buses. Because I don’t drive and spend so much time bussing and walking around town, I feel really embedded in the space rather than passing through it. I’ve come to relish the diachronic rub implicit in living here so long - the nostalgia for its less affluent (and popular) days and the excitement of constant new things to see - and finding myself caught between the two.
On October 17th, 2007 at 12:26 pm, kiley said:
PS you just eased my existential crisis a little you three. Nothing like some homelove to ease the depression of a procrastinating, privileged doctoral whinger! xxx