In keeping with yesterday’s theme of destruction and transitioning into todays topic, bridges, I offer you the preceding video from Rick Sebak (if you can’t tell, I really love his work).

“I can see where I want to go, but I just can’t get there!”

When you talk to someone who’s just experienced driving in Pittsburgh for the first time, you’re likely to hear some variation of the following: “I can see where I want to go, but I just can’t get there!”

While our geography was once advantageous in military battle, its steep hills now can be a bit of a hindrance (anyone who’s tried biking around the city can attest to this).  But our bridges (and inclines) are intended to solve these problems of our geography.  The city is virtually inaccessible without them.

Maybe the first few minutes of this video showing the implosion of the Coraopolis bridge are indicative of the loss of connections that Pittsburgh was continuing to experience at the time.  In many ways our geography separates us from each other and others, but through our interaction with the land (creating “bridges”) we’re better able to navigate our way to those destinations that we can see in front of us but struggle to find.