Junction Bridge, Fourth of July

Retroactive Fourth posting... because I love the river and the weather was so fine that night it deserves commemorating. There was a breeze you see. It came up off the water. Imagine living in Arkansas, in the summer, and being out for a public event that did not involve stultifying humidity. Remarkable.


P had tickets to watch the city's fireworks from the Junction Bridge. The Junction Bridge is an old railroad bridge from the 1880s recently made over into a pedestrian walkway. The tickets were supposedly a goodwill gesture from a local philanthropist who rented the bridge (built with public monies), thereby excluding the public. Oops. They weren't allowing people to move between the upper and lower spans however, citing weight issues, as if this old Union Pacific freight line bridge would evince the slightest tremor even if you stacked it with walruses from one end to the other. So perhaps some private usage was still intact.



The Junction Bridge is just one up from the Broadway Bridge, where the fireworks were set off, so you couldn't be any closer. We got there a little before 9. The sun set over downtown. Up river at Levy a fireworks show was clearly visible. The Arkansas Symphony played pops from the amphitheater on the bank. Somehow Little Rock missed the 20th cen. encrustation of development right to the waters edge. Not prosperous enough prehaps. But this has served us well in one respect. For all the city's westward sprawl and midtown mismanagement, the river remains green.

The fireworks went off right over our heads.




The same philanthropist bankrolls the Riverfest fireworks and for a while it looked like that extravaganza would put the city's to shame. Toward the end though the the city pulled it out with help from a grand finale of multiple exploding rockets and the 1812 Overture.