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Monday, April 28, 2009; 12:20 a.m.—Memorial Bridge, between Kittery, Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has been named by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The placement of Wentworth-by-the-Sea Hotel, in New Castle, on the 1996 Most Endangered Historic Places list, is widely credited as a pivotal moment in its survival. Since 1988, 211 sites have been placed on the “Most Threatened” list. Only six have been lost. If that was a batting average, it would be .971. A rally in support of the Memorial Bridge, and its up-river companion the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, will be …

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009—This just in: the details of Tuesday’s Save Our Bridges! Rally, scheduled for Noon on Tuesday, April 28, at John Paul Jones Park in Kittery. Thanks to Ben Porter, at PortsmouthBridges.com, for sending this. As of today, the weather prediction is for sunny weather and a high of 73 degrees. You can take this with a grain of salt, but it makes us feel better to hear what the weather service thinks. The Rally will take place at John Paul Jones Park, just across the street from Warren’s Lobster House in Kittery. We expect a sizable crowd, and there will be media …

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Wednesday, April 22—Two public meetings have been scheduled for next Monday, April 27, in Portsmouth and in Kittery, to inform the public about the now-underway study of the Memorial and Sarah Mildred Long bridges. The following information regarding the Maine-New Hampshire Connections study was released by Morris Communications on April 9. We should have posted it earlier. Sorry, we still don’t quite have the hang of this instant communications thing. Guess that comes from being a 252 year old paper-based lifeform. We shall aspire to do better. We would draw the reader’s attention to two things: (1) anyone wanting to ask questions must apparently bring …

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Friday, April 10, 2009—Save Our Bridges is online now! Ben Porter, the U.N.H. professor who conducted the recent survey of bridge use between Kittery, Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire (download a 1.3 MB pdf of the results by clicking here), has created a website dedicated to saving the two threatened bridges, the Memorial Bridge, and the Sarah Mildred Long (SML) Bridge. The new site lays out the problem: Memorial Bridge could be shut down in as little as 750 days, and the SML Bridge is also endangered. A page for each bridge lays out the specifics. Another page on the site shows the solution, and …

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Monday, April 6, 2009—An ad hoc collection of citizens from both sides of the Piscataqua have begun organizing to pressure Maine politicians and bureaucrats to preserve both the Memorial and Sarah Mildred Long bridges. A $1.3 million “Maine-New Hampshire Connections Study,” to “evaluate the long-term viability of the bridges connecting Kittery, Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire over the Piscataqua River” is now underway. A “public informational meeting will be scheduled for late April,” according to an official press release. The as-yet-unnamed citizens group is making plans to assure that HNTB Corp., the firm conducting the study, gets an earful. More details will be available very …

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