The collapse of the Fern Hollow bridge over Pittsburgh’s Frick Park a few days ago struck pretty close to home for me. I remember walking across that bridge with my girl friend soon after I moved to Pennsylvania in the late 1970′s. She was very proud of her home town, and was determined to show me the sights…and the bridge was indeed a gem. A poet once remarked “Man has made a sewer of the river, and spanned it with a poem.” But this bridge did not cross a body of water, it carried motor and pedestrian traffic over a deep, wooded ravine–a city park in the middle of town. It was a beautiful place. The bridge was built 1n 1970, and replaced an earlier span across the park. So it was practically brand new when I first saw it.

Pittsburgh is built at the intersection of three rivers, the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio, and is a city of hills and gullies. It’s what geologists call “maturely dissected terrain”. The city is a combination of highly urbanized spaces and wooded slopes where the ground is too steep or unstable to build. Divided into little precincts by geography, the existing neighborhoods are highly differentiated in land use and architectural style. Although the City has a reputation of gritty industrialization, it also has a diverse mix of ethnic neighborhoods and architectural styles. When I got there, the smoky old Steel City past was being replaced by a more diverse economy based on high tech. I fell in love with the town, and with its people. I used to tell myself “Pittsburghers are tough, but they fight fair.” The men are salt-of-the earth, hard-working types, and the girls all seem to have great legs (it must be from climbing up and down all those hills).

It has been said that Pittsburgh has more bridges than any other city in the world. Due to its terrain, I wouldn’t doubt it. And many of those bridges are very old; I’m no architectural expert, but it seemed to me many of them are pre Civil War steel link construction, unlike the more modern rebar-reinforced concrete–like the Fern Hollow span. I am happy no one was killed during the bridge failure, although I feel sad the City of Champions (I was there when the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins were on the warpath!) has lost one of its most iconic places. And its a sobering thought to reflect that I am older than that bridge was when it died.