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Pont de l'Alma

Road bridge in Paris, France

Summary

Road bridge in Paris, France

Field	Value
bridge_name	Pont de l'Alma
image	Pont de l'Alma, Paris 5 December 2016.jpg
caption	The Pont de l'Alma in Paris
official_name	Pont de l'Alma
crosses	Seine
locale	Paris, France
design	Girder bridge
length	153 m (502 ft)
width	42 m (138 ft)
coordinates
downstream	Passerelle Debilly
upstream	Pont des Invalides

The Pont de l'Alma (; ) is a road bridge in Paris, France, across the Seine. It was named to commemorate the Battle of Alma during the Crimean War, in which the Ottoman-Franco-British alliance achieved victory over the Russian army in 1854. The bridge is known for being the site of the car crash that caused the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.

History

Construction

Construction of an arch bridge took place between 1854 and 1856. It was designed by Paul-Martin Gallocher de Lagalisserie and was inaugurated by Napoleon III on 2 April 1856. Each side of both of the two piers was decorated with a statue of military nature: a Zouave and a grenadier by Georges Diébolt, and a skirmisher and an artilleryman by Arnaud.

The ''Zouave'' statue and flooding

Main article: Zouave (Pont de l'Alma)

The ''Zouave'', partially submerged by floodwaters on 3 June 2016

The general public took the original bridge as a measuring instrument for water levels in times of flooding on the Seine: access to the footpaths by the river embankments usually were closed when the Seine's level reached the feet of The Zouave; when the water hit his thighs, the river was unnavigable. During the great flood of the Seine in 1910, the level reached his shoulders. The French Civil Service used the Pont de la Tournelle, not the Pont de l'Alma, to gauge flood levels, and since 1868 uses the Pont d'Austerlitz.

Reconstruction

The bridge underwent complete reconstruction as a girder bridge between 1970 and 1974, as it had been too narrow to accommodate the increasing traffic both on and below it; moreover, the structure had subsided some 80 centimeters. Only the statue of the Zouave was retained: the Skirmisher was relocated to the Gravelle Stronghold in Vincennes, the Grenadier to Dijon, and the Artilleryman to La Fère.

Death of Diana, Princess of Wales

Main article: Death of Diana, Princess of Wales

Technical specifications

[[Air Liquide]] hydrogen station at the Pont de l'Alma

Pont de l'Alma has a length of 153 meters (502 ft) and a width of 42 meters (138 ft).

Access

The Metro station Alma–Marceau is near the north end of the bridge, RER station Pont de l'Alma near the south end.

References

"Alma Bridge".
(2018-01-27). "Paris readies for floods as Seine surges higher". [[BBC News]].
Whitney, Craig R.. (1997-08-31). "Diana Killed in a Car Accident in Paris". [[The New York Times]].
(2001). "Princess Diana: The Hidden Evidence". SP Books.
Chazan, David. (2019-05-30). "Paris pays homage to Princess Diana by naming a square after her, 22 years after fatal car crash". [[The Daily Telegraph.
(2017-08-10). "The minute-by-minute account of Diana's death".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

bridges-over-the-river-seine-in-paris bridges-completed-in-1856 bridges-completed-in-1974 buildings-and-structures-in-the-7th-arrondissement-of-paris buildings-and-structures-in-the-8th-arrondissement-of-paris 1856-establishments-in-france diana,-princess-of-wales

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