Gateway to the West

Tim and I have made the trip past the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, many times on our way to the farm in Kansas, but until now we've never stopped to see it up close.  However, if we are to visit all 417 National Park Service properties which is our lifetime (perhaps impossible) goal, now seemed the time to exit the interstate for a stop at this monument to the courage of the nineteenth century pioneers.

Our visit almost coincided with the date of the Arch's dedication fifty years ago.  On May 25, 1968, Vice President Hubert Humphrey dedicated the Gateway Arch to the people of St. Louis and the nation.  In an article published the next day, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that "a continuous, frequently heavy rain which began in the early daylight hours soaked the memorial grounds where the ceremony was to have been held and forced its removal to the underground Visitors Center beneath the Arch.  Several hundred persons witnessed the event, only a fraction of the thousands expected if the weather had been better."

Recognized in 1967 by the American Society of Civil Engineers as an outstanding civil engineering achievement, the Arch is a marvel, a testament to the technology of the mid-twentieth century.

Several times a day the documentary film about its construction plays in the underground theater of the visitors' center.  Did you know that the arch is taller than the Washington Monument?  Or that if the wind is very gusty, the top of the tower could sway 18 inches.  When the two towers were finally tall enough for the capstone to be set in place, it had to be done when on a cold day because the 900 tons of stainless steel expands in heat and the towers were built so precisely that it was a tight fit.  In fact, they had to cool the towers by spraying them with water so they could insert the capstone.

Once the capstone was set in place, the towers stabilized and as Leonardo da Vinci said:  "An arch consists of two weaknesses which, leaning one against the other, make a strength."

A poster from the Gateway Arch gift shop

Watching the nonchalance of the men who so casually stepped along the struts high in the sky filled me with anxiety.  I could barely watch the documentary to its end for fear someone would fall.  However, not a single life was lost during its construction.

A close look at the frieze inside the visitors' center reveals the joining of the Arch's two towers. 

Its completion was proof that the mathematical equation posited by its architect, Eero Saarien, could create the catenary curve of the Arch, a shape that if turned upside-down would appear to hang freely from two points.

There are north and south ramp entrances to the tram.   

After watching the film, I lacked the courage to ride the tram to the top.  Thoughts of how such a conveyance could even fit inside the triangular walls of the archway made me claustrophobic.  And when the ranger told me that the tram cars are called capsules, forget about it!  I'm not setting one foot inside them!  However, if you are brave, you could take a tram from either the north tower or the south all the way to the top.  There you can look out over the city through peepholes measuring 7" by 27" before climbing back into your tram for the reverse trip back down the same tower.

Instead, I preferred to admire the Arch from the ground level.

Watching it gleam in the sunlight tempted me to try to photograph its splendor from several angles.

Its graceful curve looked like a dangling jumprope turned upside down.

Yet, none of my photographs captured the sheer audacity of Eero Saarien's conception.  Tracy Campbell writes in his book, The Gateway Arch: A Biography:

"Let us hope that the Arch somehow survives--that it becomes, far in the future, a mysterious structure like the Great Pyramids or Stonehenge, that leads onlookers to wonder about the people who produced it and ask themselves what strange compulsions led to its creation."

Ha!  I think it's here to stay, Tim!