A new draw-bridge is being built to connect the City Fall River to the Town of Somerset, over the Taunton River, in Massachusetts. This bridge is at the present time the second largest construction project in the State of Massachusetts. The biggest project is the Big Dig in Boston, which started with a calculated price of 2 Billion dollars and is now up to 10 Billion dollars and still going up.
The
Miguel Corte Real Bridge to be inaugurated
in 2003 connecting
Fall River to Somerset
The new draw-bridge in Fall River was estimated to cost 13 millions, but it is now up to 40 millions. However the final cost will be at least 166 million, according to Governor Cellucci pledges, on Friday, March 10, 2000. It should be inaugurated in 2003. It will have a height of 50 feet and its length is 1200 feet from shore to shore.
This new draw-bridge is to substitute an old bridge called Brightman Street Bridge, which was inaugurated in October 10, 1908. This old bridge has a height of only 27 feet, and because of that needs to open over one thousand times per year to accommodate the boat and shipping traffic passing underneath it. At the present time the old Brightman Street Bridge carries a traffic of over 40 thousands vehicles per year.
The new-draw bridge will reduce the openings to 81 per cent, therefore to about 200 times per year. The new bridge is being built 1500 feet north of the old one. On the side of Fall River this is the equivalent of five blocks.
Why the new name: Miguel Corte Real Bridge ?
At the entrance of New York City Harbor exists one of the biggest suspension bridges in the world. What is its name? Verrazano’s Bridge. Why? Because the people of New York City believed that Giovanni Da Verrazano was the first European to enter the New York Harbor, in 1524, and decided that the new bridge should honor his name!
Well, who was the first European to pass by the place where the new bridge is being built, go up the Taunton River, in 1511 – (13 years before Verrazano enter New York Harbor )– and engraved his name on Dighton Rock, and also the Portuguese Coat of Arms and the Portuguese Cross of the Order of Christ, symbol of the Portuguese world discoveries? Who was he? It was the famous Portuguese navigator Miguel Corte Real!
If the people of New York City decided to honor the first European that visited the New York Harbor, what is wrong doing the same here in Fall River-Somerset to honor the first European – Miguel Corte Real -- who came up the Taunton River?
Let us note the Brightman Street Bridge was inaugurated on October 10, 1908.
Why is this date so important? Because it was after only ten years that Professor Edmund Burke Delabarre, of Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 2nd, 1918, discovered Miguel Corte Real’s name engraved on the Dighton Rock together with the date 1511 and the Portuguese Coat of arms. Since Delabarre’s findings, the discovery of four Crosses of the Order of Chris and the another Portuguese Coat of Arms were found, in 1951 and 1960, to reinforce the Portuguese Theory.
So in 1908 we did not know that Miguel Corte Real had engraved his name on the Dighton Rock in 1511. But now we know that he was the first European to come to our shores in Fall River and Somerset!!!
Do the people of Fall River and Somerset, the Massachusetts Politicians, State Senators and Representatives, including the U. S. Senators and US Congressmen, having the GUTS to give the bridge the name it deserves -- Miguel Corte Real Bridge, -- or they will waste their time bickering a thousand and one excuses for not doing so?
I just wonder what the Portuguese American State Senators and Representatives, City and Town Counsels are going to do? I will contact them and will inform you of heir responses. But let us be frank about it: This is not Portuguese history we are dealing with. This is American History. Dighton Rock is an American Monument, not a Portuguese Monument. If we have scientific proof that Miguel Corte Real’s name is engraved on Dighton Rock this fact is an American fact, not a Portuguese one!
Who is the father of the new Bridge?
The United States Congressman Barney Frank fought very hard in the U. S. Congress to have the project for the new bridge approved. He had to reintroduce the plan in order to succeed. But he won! So if Barney Frank is the father of the new bridge, it is logical that he should also be its godfather! Therefore, I am going to write to him, send him a copy of this article and suggest to him that the proper name of the new draw Bridge Fall River -Somerset should be Miguel Corte Real Bridge.
Congressman Barney Frank knows the Azores very well. He has visit it, even this year. He also knows that the Corte Real navigators were from the Island of Terceira, (where the American base Lages is located), in Azores, and he also knows that Miguel Corte Real’s father was João Vaz Corte Real, who discovered Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in 1472, (20 years before Columbus came to Central America), who owned the southern half of the Island of Terceira and is buried in the Church of Saint Francisco in Angra do Heroísmo (1496).
When Congressman Barney Frank gives me an answerer, I will place it here, on my website, for everyone to see. So, be on the alert, because this project, of naming the new bridge -- Miguel Corte Real Bridge -- is going to cause lots of commotions!!!…