bridges that fall

This has been a crazy week for many reasons with all of the reasons being big, shocking or both. The fall of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis has been the biggest and the most shocking. Unlike places such as Paris with its Eiffel Tower, San Francisco with its Golden Gate Bridge, or even San Diego and the Coronado Bridge, Minneapolis doesn't have a definitive and beloved structure that personifies the city and its people. We barely tolerate the Metrodome, we ignore the Target Center, the Weisman has critics and lovers, the Walker is bi-polar, the skyways get attention but they're a distributed collection and everything else, we tear down. So where does that leave us? Our sense of place as a city is defined by the water that flows around us. The Mississippi River gently curves its way from Minneapolis to Saint Paul to make the Twin Cities. It connects those in the city now to those who walked and worked it back then. The river has been our economic ticket too with near world dominance in the grain and milling industries (back then) and a key part of urban revitalization (right now). The media describes the bridge in terms of traffic and appearance calling it a "major artery" and of "unusual design". There is no catchy soundbite to explain how this concrete and steel represents a typical Minnesotan: understated, hard-working, and unusual if you look a little closer. For Minneapolis the bridges collapse rivals the Washburn "A" Mill explosion and the vestiges of the bridge will remain with us indefinitely.