Posts tagged bridges

(via criedfornoone)

(via criedfornoone)

criedfornoone

Schenley Park

Schenley Park

Schenley Park

Schenley Park

Davis Avenue Bridge Demolition

Yet another bridge implosion.  Does anyone know if there are any plans to rebuild this bridge?

Bridges and Barriers

As I was writing about bridges as the connective tissue that holds Pittsburgh together, I couldn’t stop thinking about John Edgar Wideman’s Sent For You Yesterday.  In the novel, along with the other Homewood Books, the railroad tracks confine the characters physically, but liberate them metaphorically.  This is a more complicated question than I can really address in this post, but as a way of challenging what I wrote yesterday, I’d like to ask, “In what ways can modes of transportation divide us from our destinations?”

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.

three50eight: another one from the book of bridges. i didn’t catch the date on this one When I saw this photo yesterday I started thinking about bridges in Pittsburgh a little more, and I remembered Mike Madison’s “Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh,” in which he uses the bridge as a metaphor for ways we can connect to other cities, countries, companies, and organizations.  It’s an excellent idea that he’s laid out. But the physical bridges in the area have always interested me; and as Mike points out, they’re an appropriate metaphor for the connective possibilities for the city.  I’d also add that they appropriately illustrate the challenges the area faces in terms of both its physical and metaphorical landscape.

three50eight:

another one from the book of bridges. i didn’t catch the date on this one

When I saw this photo yesterday I started thinking about bridges in Pittsburgh a little more, and I remembered Mike Madison’s “Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh,” in which he uses the bridge as a metaphor for ways we can connect to other cities, countries, companies, and organizations.  It’s an excellent idea that he’s laid out.

But the physical bridges in the area have always interested me; and as Mike points out, they’re an appropriate metaphor for the connective possibilities for the city.  I’d also add that they appropriately illustrate the challenges the area faces in terms of both its physical and metaphorical landscape.

ketchupandbeer