A BRIDGE IN BROOKLYN

 
I held a party last month in a dumpy part of New York, at a winery/bar in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, right near a pedestrian foot bridge. The Scott Avenue pedestrian foot bridge — a steel-and-concrete structure — was built by Republic Steel, circa 1952, so that steelworkers could safely cross the Long Island Rail Road tracks to get to the then-extant mill.

The Scott Avenue foot bridge.(Photo by Mitch Waxman)

My party was a Vulfpeck pre-concert “tailgate” for friends and relatives. After the party we were going to walk en masse over the bridge from the winery/bar to the concert venue, which was in a nearby Flats-like former warehouse/factory.

I was concerned my guests wouldn’t take to the bridge. For one thing, the bridge had a lot of graffiti and there was garbage all over. I thought my sister would bail and take an Uber from the winery/bar to the concert. My sister has never been big on filth. But she and everybody else didn’t complain about the hike or the bridge! It helped that it was dark out. The litter on the bridge was less apparent. On the far side of the bridge, several Latinos were finishing up a volleyball game. Other than that, nothing.

I had read stories in the Brooklyn Paper about crime in the neighborhood of the bridge. But those stories mostly had to do with concertgoers leaving rave shows at 2 am, drunk or stoned, and getting robbed or just plain dying of overdoses.

That Scott Avenue pedestrian foot bridge held its weight.

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