The Bridge Project Recap

If you had spent the last week living under a rock in complete denial of interweb communications or the sun perhaps you had missed out on the Bridge Project an injection of Ingenuity Fest which took place on the streetcar level of the Detroit Superior (Veteran's Memorial) Bridge and hosted the fifth Pecha Kucha Cleveland. There was quite a bit going on and from 4pm to midnight (Friday) and noon to midnight (Saturday) the bridge became the hot new public space of Cleveland.

There was something quite wonderous about the transformation, not the least of which was the studied interventions coordinated by the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative which were intentional pedestrian spaces intended to capture and challenge public interaction and flow. The Bridge came alive Friday night when I was there and turned into the sort of pulsing urban area that makes Cleveland feel like a lively city. From the intimate lighting creating areas of romance and sharing, to the impromptu (for the bridge) fireworks show after the Indian's game, to the constant arrival and departure of the hooting crowds sharing a ride on the conference bike the darkened space never felt nefarious or dangerous or the least bit intimidating. The MarJ and I reminisced upon a time in Portland when we crossed the Morrison Bridge(?) on foot on the way to meet a friend for dinner which gave us an amazing vantage of Portland but wasn't very crowded. I don't think we ever truly felt anything but cold and wet (it was raining), tired (those bridges are LONG!) and amazed at the view. There is something about bridges that offer some of the very best views of a city.

Bridges embolden some very interesting ideas. They demarcate the physical (and usually psychological) barriers between two regions (noticeable in Cleveland as the constant struggle between the vastly superior West Side and that Other Side) and allow typically unhindered vistas along shorelines or gorges typically aligned with major boulevards (necessitating the crossing). They are the physical manifestation of the idea of joining two separate and distinct entities and of overcoming barriers (sadly an idea not touched on often enough) and can be very beautiful, very utilitarian, both or neither but always intentional and purposeful.

So what did we learn from this, our night-time excursion along a path not open to public for decades (at afternoon hours)? We learned that Cleveland has some postcard views, that hearing the cars rumble overhead with the river rushing by below is unnerving but the concrete and steel are reassuring, that if you have something so singular and amazing such as that bridge level, that it needs to be celebrated and shared, and that Cleveland is acres of unutilized potential of river and lake shore and space whose only hinderer is our lack of imagination and our hesitancy to try to do something new and different.

Congratulations to all those hard working folks at the County Engineer's office, CUDC, Ingenuity, etc, who put on a great event. I can only hope that more was awoken in our hearts than a mere desire to walk a great path once and that we can begin to really see and activate/create the potential that does exist here before it is too late. I know I am not the only one of limited patience.