This is My City

And I love it.

Yesterday, I took my fam to the coolest thing. We got to walk the deck under the Detroit-Superior Bridge. The deck used to house the “subway” portion of the old streetcar line. According to the tiny little “article” in the Plain Dealer two days prior, Cuyahoga County Department of Public Works has been opening this deck once a year, usually on the fourth of July weekend, for about 10 years.

This was my first visit. I never heard of the type of opening like they had yesterday. However, I knew that a few Ingenuity Fests were held on this deck. I wasn’t able to make those Ingenuity Fests and the current year’s site is the lakefront. I heard a lot of noise about possibly opening up the deck to bikers and pedestrians. I don’t see that as a doable task. The security and safety issues are huge. Therefore, I didn’t think I’d ever get to explore this area. So when I saw the tiny little article about this being open, I was so excited. And thankfully, my family’s Saturday morning was baseball and softball game free. That is super rare for a Saturday in July, so I figure this was meant to be.

The “open house” started at 9 am and we showed up at 11. It was packed. Everyone was sporting at least a cell phone camera, and many people had tripods and massive camera bags. The views from the bridge were amazing. And the views of the underbelly of the bridge were equally so.

There was an old streetcar, appropriately named Desire. People weren’t allowed in this but there was an old engine car and a cut-open passenger car that were open for people to crawl around in.

Most of the tracks have long been removed. The wire grid, of which most of the “floor” of the bridge is composed, is covered with sheets of plywood. It was disconcerting for my children to walk out on these plywood sheets as one could clearly see how far below the river is when one got to the joins of the sheets. Heck, it was a bit scary for me also. The rumbling of the traffic overhead and the flimsy nature of plywood sheets can certainly make one feel vulnerable.

We spent about 2 hours walking the span. We went east on the lower deck but walked on the sidewalk on our way back west.

In two hours, we took over 200 pictures. I have some great shots of the sailboats framed under stunning, arching bridges in the mouth of the Cuyahoga. I have amazing pictures of the structure of the bridge itself.

My kids don’t appreciate it now, but once day they will. Hopefully they’ll continue this tradition because I want to go back. I absolutely have to bring a better camera next time.