It wasnt replaced until 1968 when the 1053- foot-long Gerald Desmond Bridge was finished.
Pontoon bridge long beach california. Feb 26 2016 - Pontoon Bridge connecting Terminal Island. In the mid-1960s construction began on the replacement of the pontoon bridge the Gerald Desmond Bridge. Half a century after it was built the Gerald Desmond is still able to serve the City of Long Beach in southern California but it has come to be called functionally obsolete by engineers.
Built by the Navy. This section of Ocean Blvd was previously part of CA 7. Every sailor who served in Long Beach California was familiar with the pontoon bridge which linked the city to Terminal Island where the Navy base and shipyard were located.
The Terminal IslandPort of Los Angeles Collection documents the neighborhoods businesses and landscapes on Terminal Island Catalina Island San Pedro and. The Bridge was a intended for a temporary usage for the Long. Rising and falling tides make the trip across an adventure for local drivers.
Before the old Gerald Desmond opened in 1968 there was a floating pontoon bridge that connected downtown Long Beach to Terminal Island home to the former Navy base. Terminal Island California OBJECT GENRE. The roughly 15-mile span named after a former city attorney and councilman of the City of Long Beach was completed in 1968.
Its namesake was a prominent Long Beach civic leader who served as a Long Beach city councilman and also as the city attorney. The Gerald Desmond Bridge connecting Terminal Island to Long Beach was preceded by a pontoon bridge built by the Navy in 1948 as a 6-month temporary emergency structure The pontoon bridge went on to last until the opening of the Gerald Desmond Bridge in 1968. See this object in the California State Universities Japanese American Digitization project site.
The pontoon bridge was a traffic bottleneck until it was replaced by the Gerald Desmond Bridge in late 1968. The floating bridge separates and is retracted when water traffic needs to enter or leave. The pontoon bridge was an engineering marvel of floating sections which an operator could separate in order to allow boat traffic to pass through.