A bridge of hope for city’s poorest
The graffiti-scrawled 1,170-foot-long McBride Viaduct links two of Erie, Pennsylvania’s, poorest neighbourhoods.
When the viaduct opened in the late 1930s, the city was growing. The bridge, renovated in the 1970s, funnelled traffic through what were, at the time, thriving neighbourhoods.
Then the factories started disappearing. The viaduct’s largely German, Polish and Irish district became home to increasing numbers of Black people, Latinos and refugees from Africa and the Middle East, whose arrivals have slowed the city’s population decline.
Erie was recently ranked the worst city in the country for African-Americans. Using national census data, the news organization 24/7 Wall Street found that 47 per cent of the city’s Black population lives at or below the national poverty line, twice the rate for African-Americans nationally.
And city hall is perceived by many Black residents as an enclave of white privilege. There are only eight minority police officers of 173 officers employed by the city. Former Erie County poet laureate Cee Williams suggested using money to fix the bridge “might help change the lives of kids who end up costing the public a fortune in prison.”
But Erie officials are poised to tear the bridge down. They say only a clique of preservationists cares about saving the viaduct, a victim of the region’s harsh weather.
“The reason Black people weren’t showing up at public meetings to talk about the viaduct is that they have lost hope,” said Shantel Hilliard, longtime executive director of the Booker T. Washington Center.
The city’s new mayor, Joe Schember, has already announced his determination to tear the old bridge down.
He concluded that the McBride bridge was no longer safe or needed, and that it might cost some $6 million to fix.
Preservationists are angrily conjecturing a lower cost to keep the bridge openfor pedestrians and bikes.
The mayor has in the meantime endorsed Erie Refocused, a plan that also calls for improved community engagement, public spaces and streets geared more toward pedestrians and bikes.
R. Jason Wieczorek is an architect in the Erie office of Bostwick Design Partnership.
Wieczorek lives on the West Side and endorses investing in downtown and along the waterfront, to attract businesses and tourists, not in “failing neighbourhoods.”
He recalled Richard Florida, the urbanist who years ago theorized about city cores radiating prosperity by cultivating a “creative class.” But Florida said his thinking has since “evolved” on the issue.
“The creative class can’t mean only recruiting artists and people who work for tech companies,” Florida said. “It has to include ... immigrants, refugees, African-American communities.”