‘Bridgefest’ bittersweet goodbye

After 94 years, the Greenfield Bridge will go out with a bang.

The Greenfield Community Association will host “Rock Away the Blues Bridgefest” this Saturday to celebrate the bridge’s last day open to the public until demolition and rebuilding wraps up in spring 2017. With live music and food, the festival aims to highlight local businesses affected by the bridge’s closure, as the bridge provides an integral transportation link between Greenfield and Schenley Park, Squirrel Hill and Oakland.

“There are estimates as to the impact, but we are focused on monitoring the situation to determine where there are particular pain points and what might be done in response to those,” Mitch Margaria, the co-chair of Bridgefest said. “The Greenfield Community Association and the City [of Pittsburgh] are prepared to work together and with the community to address the impacts as effectively as possible.”

Matt Singer, a legislative aide with District 5 City Councilman Corey O’Connor, who represents Greenfield, acknowledged that while the bridge’s rebuilding will temporarily pose a challenge, its lasting impact will benefit the area.

“While Bridgefest is meant to be a send-off, it’s also an opportunity to remind people that the neighborhood’s business district will still be open,” Singer said. “The Greenfield Community Association plans to use the funds generated from the event as a reinvestment in the community and the business district during the bridge’s closure.”

On and off the bridge from 4 p.m. to midnight, Bridgefest will host live music by local bands North of Mason-Dixon, Milly and Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. People can shop for handmade items at I Made It! Market and dine from food and beer trucks.

The biggest allure, though, is a concluding raffle that will determine who gets to detonate the bridge’s implosion this December.

Margaria said the Greenfield Community Association decided all of the entertainment and content for the party would showcase what Greenfield has to offer to the rest of the city. 

“It was really important that this be a hometown goodbye, with elements that celebrate the neighborhood and the region,” Margaria said.

The bridge has been referenced on “60 Minutes” and “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” as a symbol of America’s crumbling infrastructure. Built in 1922, Oliver joked about how the City addressed concerns of falling concrete from the bridge by constructing a second bridge beneath it in 2003, just to catch falling bits of concrete.

The bridge officially closes to vehicular traffic on Friday, October 16. The demolition crew plans to close Parkway East between Wilkinsburg and Oakland during a five-day period between Christmas and New Year’s Day, bring in a bed of dirt, implode the bridge, clean up the mess and get to work on a replacement.

The replacement bridge, which the Greenfield community helped design, will feature a green steel arch instead of the current concrete design. It will keep the same vehicular configuration with one lane headed toward Schenley Park and two toward Greenfield, but will have wider vehicle lanes and two new five-foot bike lanes. The city will preserve some original features of the bridge though, including decorative urns and original light poles.

Many local residents, including Rob Davis, 26, agree that something must be done about the dilapidated bridge, but worry about everyday life during the closure. 

“The bridge closure will disrupt my commute from Greenfield to Oakland,” Davis said. “I feel that without [the bridge], it will disrupt Squirrel Hill, Regent Square and parkway traffic [too].”

Singer said getting around the bridge closure won’t be easy, but it is an opportunity for the community to come together.

“By no means is this going to be an easy time for the community. It will require a lot of changing of normal routines, and a lot of patience,” Singer said. “However, Greenfield will be able to weather the closure of the bridge by coming together as a community, and as a city.”