Million Dollar Bridge

Million Dollar Bridge. . , Developers first plotted the residential neighborhood of Woodley Park in 1875, attached to this high land overlooking Rock Creek, where Philip Barton Key had built an estate that he named Woodley. (You can see the Woodley mansion on the campus of Maret School, 3000 Cathedral Avenue.) But Rock Creek's deep ravines limited the size of Woodley Park until 1907, when the Connecticut Avenue bridge opened and development began in earnest. Twenty years later, Woodley Park was largely complete., At the time it was built, the Connecticut Avenue bridge, nicknamed “Million Dollar Bridge” due to its then-extraordinary cost, was the largest to be constructed of pre-cast concrete. Even its feline guardian sculptures were made of concrete. Originally sculpted by Roland Hinton Perry, the lions have been restored twice, once in 1964 by sculptor Renato Lucchetti, and again in 2000 by Reinaldo Lopez. The bridge is also known for its lamp posts, each topped with an eagle alighting, by sculptor Ernest C. Bairstow., The bridge was renamed the William Howard Taft Bridge in 1930, to honor the former president (1909-1913) and chief justice of the Supreme Court (1921-1930), who lived in neighboring Kalorama.