The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge: So, What Are We Actually Going to Call This Thing?

Posted on January 23rd, 2012 2:49pm by Jason Heid
Filed under Local Government, Local News, Transportation
A Santiago Calatrava rendering of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.

A Santiago Calatrava rendering of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.

We need to take care of this before it gets to be too late. We kept telling ourselves we’d get around to deciding how we should refer to the decade that ran from 2000 through 2009. The 2000s? The Aughts? And we never could come to an agreement.

Let’s not allow the same thing to happen to the Woodall Rodgers Extension Bridge, or, as the Hunt Petroleum Company would have us call it: the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.

Hunt contributed $12 million to the Trinity River project and therefore has the right to honor the family matriarch. I have no objection to that being the official name, for the purposes of press releases and on first reference in newspaper stories. But that’s a heck of a long eponym, compounded by the fact that the double surname makes it difficult to know the proper way to abbreviate. Should it be the Hunt Hill Bridge, or just the Hill Bridge?

Generally, we the media have punted. It’s usually either something like “the Calatrava bridge” or “the Santiago Calatrava-designed bridge” on second reference in news articles. When we just can’t avoid the issue, we’re stuck having to repeat the whole damn name, as the Dallas Morning News does here, or as our own FrontRow blog does here.

Stop the madness. Surely we’re going to come up with a generally accepted nickname anyway. You know, whatever traffic helicopters will say when they need to talk about bottlenecks on the bridge, e.g.  ”Heavy backup onto Woodall this afternoon due to a three-car pileup on the Marge.”

Let’s make this happen sooner rather than later. My proposals:

1)  The Calatrava (named for the architect) – It’s how we most often hear people refer to the bridge anyway, right? Yes, the name is a number of syllables itself, but its vowel sounds flow together easily, unlike the hard stops forced upon the speaker by the Ts in “Margaret Hunt Hill.”  The other objection is that a second Calatrava bridge is in the works, but since we all know that the Spanish architect was asked to make his other design a cheaper version, let’s face the fact that we’re really only going to have one fully-formed Calatrava bridge.

2) The PVC (named for its appearance) – I’ll admit to being among those who think the bridge’s main feature looks like Dallas decided to make a knockoff of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis out of PVC pipe.

3) The Marge (a nickname) – Our best, most enjoyable option for shortening “Margaret Hunt Hill.” With the added benefit that, provided the Margaret McDermott Bridge (the bridge over I-30, which was also to have been a Calatrava design) comes into existence, Dallas can come to be known around the world as “Home of the Marges.”

The Marge, almost ready for primetime.

The Marge, almost ready for primetime.

41 comments

  1. I say call it ‘The Hunt’ because it rhymes with some other words we use when we’re pissed and stuck in trafic!

    @ 2:54 pm on January 23, 2012

  2. Since the McDermott bridge will most likely not have an arch (and if it does, it will be much smaller), then we can call the bridges Large Marge and Small Marge.

    @ 3:05 pm on January 23, 2012

  3. “Large Marge”

    @ 3:08 pm on January 23, 2012

  4. The Marg…Hey look at the Omni Hotel lights, now THAT is tacky.

    @ 3:10 pm on January 23, 2012

  5. The Dough-Blender. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kitchen-Dough-Blender.jpg

    @ 3:10 pm on January 23, 2012

  6. Cat’s Cradle.

    @ 3:12 pm on January 23, 2012

  7. In casual conversation, my friends and I usually go with ‘the ‘Trava.’ Or, ‘the Travs.’
    Neither is really acceptable for formal reference, though.

    @ 3:24 pm on January 23, 2012

  8. The ISB (Italian Steel Bridge)

    @ 3:26 pm on January 23, 2012

  9. My kid has been taking lots of pictures. It is a pretty thing to take pictures of anyway.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigredwill/

    @ 3:32 pm on January 23, 2012

  10. The MHH

    @ 3:43 pm on January 23, 2012

  11. Hunt’s Folly

    @ 3:45 pm on January 23, 2012

  12. The Harp.

    @ 3:45 pm on January 23, 2012

  13. How about The Harp? (Although currently, I am partial to Large Marge. )

    @ 4:03 pm on January 23, 2012

  14. HHB. Three letter acronyms are already used routinely (LBJ, DFW). But I prefer the hard stop in HHB over MHH.

    Or you could just call it The Bridge. Everyone will know what you’re talking about.

    @ 4:40 pm on January 23, 2012

  15. It doesn’t look quite like a dreamcatcher, but it reminds me of one.

    @ 4:42 pm on January 23, 2012

  16. The Hunty
    Or
    The Hill

    @ 4:51 pm on January 23, 2012

  17. 1. Lucifer’s Harp

    2. The Colossal Egg-Slicer of Despair

    3. The Big Zither

    @ 5:19 pm on January 23, 2012

  18. The Hoop. As in croquet…

    @ 5:21 pm on January 23, 2012

  19. Gateway to the Ghetto

    @ 5:22 pm on January 23, 2012

  20. The Bridge to Ray’s Gun Shop.

    @ 6:24 pm on January 23, 2012

  21. Peggy

    @ 6:29 pm on January 23, 2012

  22. I was thinking…we should put up a big neon sign like the ones they’ve got in, Vegas and Reno, on top of the “whatever that thing that that spanish dude designed that’s going over the Trinity which sometimes has water under and sometimes don’t” and it could say, “Welcome to The World Class City of Dallas…Prepare to be BEDAZZLED”. Has a nice ring to it, maybe???

    @ 6:36 pm on January 23, 2012

  23. Brooklyn Bridge

    @ 6:36 pm on January 23, 2012

  24. The “Midge” Margaret’s Bridge.

    @ 6:43 pm on January 23, 2012

  25. @gg…that sounds like the title to a “Lifetime” movie.

    @ 8:45 pm on January 23, 2012

  26. Land Grab Bridge

    @ 10:22 pm on January 23, 2012

  27. “Brook Lined Bridge”
    “Silver Gate Bridge” (Think about it!)
    “Great Weigh Arch”
    “Dumb Bargain Bridge”
    “Daffy Duct”

    @ 10:48 pm on January 23, 2012

  28. Large Marge… or Colossal Egg-Slicer of Despair. It’s hard to choose.

    @ 12:56 am on January 24, 2012

  29. A waste of money.

    @ 5:55 am on January 24, 2012

  30. Call is: That mother

    @ 7:15 am on January 24, 2012

  31. I like the Brooklyn Bridge idea.

    @ 8:32 am on January 24, 2012

  32. The Web.

    @ 8:45 am on January 24, 2012

  33. The Ripoff. It works on so many levels — it’s a ripoff of the taxpayers. It’s a ripoff of other Calatrava designs. Calatrava ripped off the people who paid for the design.

    @ 8:54 am on January 24, 2012

  34. The Sieve.

    @ 10:05 am on January 24, 2012

  35. M Double H B

    @ 10:26 am on January 24, 2012

  36. the Margaret Bridge or the Maggie Bridge

    @ 12:21 pm on January 24, 2012

  37. The Double HB like The Double AC. That Omni thing sort of blew the bridge away light-wise. Don’t the Hill heirs want to name it. IJS

    @ 3:50 pm on January 24, 2012

  38. At Dallas Voice (at the suggestion of the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League) we’re referring to it as The Bridge to Ray’s Gun Shop to honor the business on the corner of Singleton and Sylvan in West Dallas.

    The Hunt name just sticks in our craw. That family has made so much and given so little to this city. The $12 million to the Trinity project is a fraction of the tax breaks they got for their latest office tower. NOT gonna honor them in anything I write in any way, shape or form.

    @ 4:55 pm on January 24, 2012

  39. Bedazzle Bridge just has a nice ring to it.

    @ 2:24 pm on January 28, 2012

  40. The Dove. Looks like wings and bird flying upward.

    @ 1:02 pm on February 2, 2012

  41. Large Marge – if we embrace ridiculous names for ridiculous public works projects, maybe those rich folks will stop trying to foist them on us.

    @ 7:06 pm on February 22, 2012