As I approach my 14th year at News4JAX, I reflect on my view of the bridges in this similar city. When the Landing was opened, it was mirrored after Harborplace in Baltimore. The River City is more like Baltimore than many people know.
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Driving over or walking over the Main Street Bridge, I always notice the steel and sometimes think about the Key Bridge or when I drive over the Dames Point and realize how important the shipping industry is to an area.
The bridges mean something. It is part of who we are. I am off from work this week and stayed up a little past the usual bedtime. As I got ready to call it a night, my phone started going crazy. I could not believe the video I saw.
Keeping tabs on friends who live in my small town of Dundalk; the pain is there today. To paraphrase what some people are saying. “It was the way out of our small town for adventure.” “The bridge also was a marker to let us know we were home.”
I would like to add it was what I stared at when I was bored in high school. Who wouldn’t be distracted by the beauty of the Francis Scott Key Bridge when discussing Beowulf or Shakespeare? Also, when the garage door was open in shop class and I was waiting my turn to use the belt sander, table saw or drill press, it was easy to see that the bridge was not just an image in the background.
The bridge was a backdrop to generations of families who went fishing or crabbing at numerous docks. Today was a day when those memories of childhood came rushing back. Most of us had families who worked at Bethlehem Steel. Whose house we could play at depended on whose dad was working the night shift.
I reminisce of sleepovers at friends’ houses that could see the bridge: “There’s the light of Bethlehem.” We knew that was where our dads were. Growing up there was a sense of pride that our dads had a role in providing the steel for that bridge.
Eventually, the focus will turn to rebuilding. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called it “A Cathedral of American Infrastructure.” There are few American steel mills left. The next cathedral needs to be American-made.
The next generation needs a bridge to be a sense of pride and a marker of home.