Birmingham Bridge, you have never been your own. James Romanelli named you in 1978. He renamed you. Once, you were the Brady Street Bridge, the South 22nd Bridge the clinical name, connecting Uptown, Oakland, and the Hill District to the South Side at 22nd Street. There was one that came before you.
There was a brother of yours, Birmingham. I feel I can call you just that now. There was Brady Street Bridge right under the nose of the Parkway, right in what now, in 2013 seems like the only open space between Brady Street leading to Second Avenue, leading to Hot Metal, leading to your up-ramp. They demolished him, exploded him. His birth, day unspecified,1896 and death, May 30, 1978. He must have been of fire, he must have, I can tell from the photos, the videos, all the heavy dark smoke, the blackness, the gray city behind it; you must have all been on fire.
Built from steel truss when no one else still did Pittsburgh made your brother strong, skinny, two-lane, and spider webbed. He wasn’t as thick as you are, as wide as you have become, wasn’t as centrally massive in the middle of the Monongahela. He was, from my view in Uptown, a little further to the right. One South Side block. Do you know how many feet that is, how many yards, how many days--it took for him to disappear? What did it take for Brady to disappear? You were only a baby, Birmingham, but can you tell me anything? Remember your family.
I think about him when I stare into the far off hills of Mount Washington and the Downtown buildings that block the West End view. The water, vast, but somehow outweighed by the buildings, it disappears, doesn’t have an end. I think about how intimate the commute would have been on Brady, how much space I have when I walk, jog, run, drive, bus you and how I want you closer, tighter, so I can feel your veins, like I can almost touch the floss-looking truss and used to hold Brady, a pencil in my hands. I think of him and how I could swing upon him like George the Jungle. I think of how they didn’t want you to be you, but an offspring of a demolished thing.
I like that you chose a bridge as your place to blog from. It's a great meeting place of urban chaos and open air, a great place to view the water and the city. Your description of the steel trusses on the old bridge as spider-webbed is lovely, as is the new bridge's floss-looking truss. You do a nice job pointing out the beauty in what is probably an everyday view for people rushing back and forth and not really paying attention. I want to read more about the history and the burning of the bridge; you've made me curious.
ReplyDeleteYou're continuing the lovely lyrical voice here and I appreciate that we're getting some of the history of the bridge. I am also getting a good sense of your own metaphorical relationship with this feature of the landscape. I do find myself wondering about you, in a concrete sense, as positioned by this feature. What is your vantage point as you consider it? What does this look like? Sound like? Is it possible to engage in a physical sense with something as inanimate as a bridge?
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