William Jolly Bridge

Okay, so I'm standing here at the William Jolly Bridge, and it's quite impressive. You can tell it's got that Art Deco look, which was really popular back when it was built. It was designed by Harding Frew and the actual construction, done by MR Hornibrook, happened between 1928 and 1932. What's cool is that it has these two piers in the river and two pylons on the banks, supporting three big arches. They called it a "rainbow arch type," and apparently, it was the first of its kind in Australia. It's actually a steel frame, but it's got this concrete veneer that they treated to make it look like "light-coloured porphyry."

When it first opened, right in the middle of the Great Depression, it was just called the Grey Street Bridge. But then, in 1955, they renamed it after William Jolly, who was the very first Lord Mayor of Greater Brisbane. It's even on the Queensland Heritage Register, added in 1996.

This bridge was a big deal for Brisbane, especially after Greater Brisbane formed in 1925. Before this, the only traffic bridge connecting the CBD and South Brisbane was the second Victoria Bridge, which was built in 1897 after an earlier one got washed away. This spot, at the tip of the South Brisbane peninsula, has always been a crossing point. Aboriginal tribes from the Moreton region used to cross here, then Europeans on the North Quay ferry, and now us on the bridge. The whole South Brisbane peninsula used to be called Kurilpa, meaning "place of rats," because of all the bush rats in the lush vegetation. There's even a park nearby called Kurilpa Point now. It's pretty neat to think about all that history while standing right here.