The McKee Street Bridge is one of several bridges constructed across Buffalo Bayou in the late 1920s and early 1930s to the designs of the city's bridge engineer McKenzie. The sinuous reinforced-concrete girders bracketing the roadway take the form of moment diagrams: the undulating arched profiles of the girders represent the distribution of structural stresses involved in bridging the channel. In 1985 Houston artist Kirk Farris painted the girders in light and dark blue to contrast with the red brick street paving. Under his leadership, the banks of the bayou adjoining McKee Street were transformed into parklike landscapes.