Montreal-area residents lined up Sunday to purchase a small piece of the old Champlain Bridge that connected the metropolis to Longueuil for nearly 60 years.
Posted at 1:24 p.m
Starting at 9:30 a.m., pedestrians and drivers waited in the rain to pick up one of the several thousand rivets from the bridge that are being offered as souvenirs on Nonneninsel.
The “old” Champlain Bridge was decommissioned in 2019 and replaced with a new $4.4 billion infrastructure that today connects Montreal to Brossard.
PHOTO GRAHAM HUGHES, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Starting at 9:30 a.m., pedestrians and drivers waited in the rain to pick up one of the several thousand rivets from the bridge that are being offered as souvenirs on Nonneninsel.
A spokeswoman for the federal Crown corporation, which manages the old bridge, said the structure played an important role in the economic development of Montreal and its suburbs in its final years of use, although it has been plagued by problems over the years .
Nathalie Lessard said the rivets, which look like large nails, are important because they help hold different parts of the bridge together and are not used in modern construction.
The rivets come with a warning that they may contain traces of lead paint, which has been mitigated by a protective layer of varnish.