The Grand Rapids Press reports that a local Christian missionary finds himself the owner of an abandoned railroad bridge that will give cyclists a scenic ride across the Grand River, part of a $1.4 million urban bike trail connector.
According to excerpts from the story:
Bob Cunningham remembers his wife's reaction when he came home from a 1993 bankruptcy auction for the assets of the Penn Central Railroad.
"You bought a what?" she asked when Cunningham announced he was the winning bidder for an old railroad bridge that spanned the Grand River and Market Avenue SW on the city's Southwest Side. Cunningham did not have a plan for the structure — it was just too cheap to pass up. But he is proud of the way his impulse purchase has turned out.
Today, the old bridge has new life as part of a 1-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail connecting the Black Hills Neighborhood and Roberto Clemente Park to the city's lower West Side and the Kent Trails to the south to Millennium Park and eventually Byron Center.
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