Zakim Bridge To Get Lit: 15th Anniversary Lighting Show

BOSTON — You might want to go for a walk and park yourself along the Charles with a good view of the Zakim Bridge Friday night, because it's about to get lit. As a way to celebrate its 15 years in existence, the folks at MassDOT have announced that the bridge will host a lighting show Friday night.

The lighting show will start around 8:30 p.m., and go until about 10 p.m., and will consist of the bridge being lit in varying colors throughout this time period. Each color will be displayed on the bridge for several minutes, according to MassDOT.

The Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge in Boston is a cable-stayed bridge that carries traffic on I-93 and Route 1 across the Charles River in Boston serving as the northern entrance to and exit from the city.Dedicated in 2002 and completed in 2003, it replaced the Charlestown High Bridge which was built in the 1950s. It cost about $105 million.

The bridge is more than 1,400 feet long and 183 feet wide, and the highest tower of the bridge is 323 feet tall.

The current LED lighting system on the Zakim Bridge was completed in 2012 and allows MassDOT to remotely create and program custom colors that are displayed across the bridge structure.

The bridge was part of The Big Dig Project in Boston, and was considered one of the widest cable-stayed bridges in the world when it was built. The Bridge is named after civil rights activist Lenny Zakim and the American colonists who fought the British in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Fun fact? In October 2002, 14 elephants frоm the Ringling Brothers аnd Barnum & Bailey Circus crossed the new Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge tо test the bridge's structural integrity.

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Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch Staff