The bridge was closed in 1991. The eastern half was removed in the late 1990s and plans for the remaining structure to serve as a retail slab with skyline views fell apart long ago, according to the Bridge Hunter database.(Atlanta Department of Transportation photo)

There are many spots throughout the city of Atlanta that have a lot of history packed in them, especially ones involving infrastructure.

One of those is in Bankhead, particularly a century-old bridge that is no longer in use.

The Bankhead Avenue Bridge, also known as the "Bridge to Nowhere" is an iconic bridge within the city that doesn't lead to anywhere since one side was torn down many years ago.

And now, construction crews working for the Atlanta Department of Transportation have begun demolition activities to take down the 100-year-old span completely.

On May 31, the Atlanta Department of Transportation provided an update on social media for the project as crews started to take down the structure piece by piece.

"Demolition activities have been under way at the Bankhead Highway Overhead Bridge site," the statement said.

Crews started the removal of the circa-1912 span and all associated debris over the active Norfolk Southern and CSX railroad lines. It is currently an abandoned truss bridge. What is left of the bridge is 100 ft. of steel spanning across train tracks that has been neglected for many years.

Plans call for a multi-use trail to replace the structure, bridging Westside into Georgia Tech.

Bridge History

The Bankhead Avenue Bridge (alternately Bankhead Highway Bridge) was a primary east-west connecting point between Midtown and Westside neighborhoods in the days before Interstate 20 and other routes over the railroad were built.

It closed in 1991. The eastern half of the bridge was removed for a gigantic parking lot, which is why the bridge seems to lead to nowhere. It's a marker of how the city once operated and how much has changed over the years. Plans for the remaining structure to serve as a retail slab with skyline views fell apart long ago, according to the Bridge Hunter database.

This truss bridge was originally used to help carry Bankhead Avenue over the railroad tracks. This was in the heyday of trains when train traffic was bustling in and out of the city at all times. There needed to be another pedestrian route, which resulted in the bridge being built.

But when the automotive traffic on the bridge began to lessen in the 1950s, the train tracks underneath were rerouted to another nearby underpass.

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