Should you have any doubt whatsoever as to the safety of the Bay Bridge's new eastern span, have no fear. Meet the new Bay Bridge troll, whose protection all drivers are now under. The photo was sent out over the Bay Bridge Twitter feed last night.
During the retrofit after the 1989 earthquake, the old troll, created by artist Bill Roan, was welded in place on the north side of the eastern span, without official sanction. The L.A. Times has the story of how that occurred...
Employed by a West Oakland shop that allowed workers to fabricate their own creations after hours, this artist had begun work on a gargoyle-like earthquake god named San Andreas shortly before the temblor struck on Oct. 17, 1989.
After the owner of a neighboring shop got the contract to fabricate the span's replacement beams, the artist was asked if he wanted to put San Andreas on the bridge.
"I thought that was the dumbest idea I'd ever heard," he recalled, reasoning that Caltrans would yank it down and his work would wind up in some office or flea market. He declined.
Yet as the days passed, he saw how hard the ironworkers labored on the replacement deck. He thought of the everyday citizens who had performed heroic rescues on the collapsed Cypress Street Viaduct nearby.
He changed his mind, opting to come up with a creation based on the ancient lore of trolls — an amalgamation with a dragon's head, the horns of a goat (a nod to the Three Billy Goats Gruff, who cross a cranky troll's bridge) and webbed appendages in case it "needed to swim around the piers to do work."