When the new section of Oakland’s Bay Bridge went up, the historic section of the Northern California icon was slated for the scrapyard. David Grieshaber wants to turn it into a building, complete with an Airbnb space for guests.
Last September, a brand new eastern span of the Bay Bridge stretching between Oakland and San Francisco opened to traffic, a multi-billion dollar, earthquake-safe project that arose right next to the old Bay Bridge, a historic piece of infrastructure erected in the 1930s that partially collapsed during a 1989 earthquake. Bay Area resident David Grieshaber, for one, was sad to hear that the structure would be dismantled and sold for scrap. "It’s been a part of our Bay Area for the past 78 years, and now it’s going to be gone forever," he says.
Via Fast Company.
The project has an eery resemblance to the Oakland Bridge as depicted by William Gibson in the Bridge Trilogy. After a devastating earthquake, the bridge became unusable, and San Francisco and Oakland residents began squatting there.