"City of Mississauga (former) Commissioner Angus E. McDonald: an aloha and farewell"

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Video dedicated for (former) City of Mississauga Commissioner of Transportation and Works, Angus E. McDonald.

Video taped inside City of Mississauga Council Chambers (November 11, 2009) is paired with on-site visit of Mississauga's 100-year old "Middle Road Bridge" (November 28, 2009)


PORTION OF TRANSCRIPT:

So we've just walked across this bridge from Etobicoke and on this side is City of Mississauga. So this really is a boundary between Etobicoke over on this side, Mississauga here.

And "1909" —this being 2009, this is a Centennial Bridge!

[reporting from bottom of the bridge, Etobicoke side]

So great story. So so happy that I persevered and found the bridge. So. Don't think it's that appropriate to call it —or suggest to Council calling it the "Angus McDonald Bridge" because 1909, somebody else thought about that bridge and also built it.

But (he) certainly helped in the reconstruction of it and hopefully Council can think of something appropriate to do.

[videotaping the top of the bridge, Mississauga side]

—clearly loved the bridge and I can see why.

And that's the thing about bridges. Bridges are physical things made of concrete and rocks and steel.

But there's also the abstract concept of "Bridge" which is to bridge relationships or to bridge understanding. So bridges are highly highly symbolic.

[Taking last videotape shot of Middle Road Bridge, Mississauga side. Sound of walking and crunching of leaves]

ONE OF THREE BOYS seeing I was videotaping and stopping behind me:

Can we walk?

MISSISSAUGAWATCH:

Yeah. Sure. Thank you.

ONE OF THREE BOYS to the others as they cross:

That's a nice bridge, actually.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• MISSISSAUGA
• TRANSPORTATION AND WORKS

[loneprimate]

I felt so badly for you when you were looking up Evans Avenue and said "I was unsuccessful in the other direction"... it was about a quarter mile directly behind you down the hill! :) It was the first concrete truss bridge in Canada, so I'm told, and only the second in North America. It's now the oldest.

Unfortunately, there's a much more substantial bridge, the Angus L. Macdonald bridge, across Halifax Harbour. Could be confusing to rename it with just the middle initial different. :)

[MISSISSAUGAWATCH]

@loneprimate Hi there. If you felt sorry for me in this video, you should've seen what I left out! I was driving north, south, east, west even for a while mistaking a huge bridge for this one (I had zero clues what it looked like).

Found it when I accidentally got on the QEW cut-off. Thing about it was, once I got first sight of that bridge?.. I KNEW it was the one I was looking for.

What a wonderful, beautiful PERFECT bridge! Bridges make me grateful for the geeks and skills of Public Works.

[loneprimate]

@MISSISSAUGAWATCH I know just how you feel. I went looking for it in the summer of 1998, based just on the hint of a bridge, in a MapArt GTA map book, connecting two seemingly disconnected roads with the same name, Sherway Drive, on opposite sides of Etobicoke Creek. Experience had shown me such gaps often yield abandoned bridges. I drove up on it just the same way you did, and had pretty much the same reaction. Watching you discover it in real time was an absolute joy.