We are on my bridge in Seattle in 2025.
Aurora is my bridge because I’ve lived here a third of the life and crossed it thousands of times. It’s pretty. The arch, the truss.
I had even a prettier and more magnanimous bridge, Verrazzano, when I lived and worked at 15 State Street in Manhattan. Day and night, summer and winter I had it in my window on the 21st floor. That and the Lady in the Harbor. And Herman Melville was born on the site. But it was. Aurora is.
One reason I make Aurora the linchpin is the arch-truss-frills cofusion that illustrates how we Europeans ought to go to have a country.
Because we worldwide Europeans don't have a country. But wait a minute, should we? Oh, like hell we should.
White, or better yet European, or it’s over for Aristotle, Dante, Edison, you and me.
In that way, how has Aurora Bridge become an idea and the form?
One Tuesday morning I was on a bus 16 going over Aurora Bridge to work, and I overhear an exchange between two women and the driver out front. Something in their voices, “planes,” “New York,” “in the air.” I can’t make it out, and drop back to the inner trail. A half-hour later I walk into the museum and it’s so quiet as if we had a power break. Then I hear about it from the staff. Because the day is September 11 and the year 2001, as you might’ve guessed.
And right here we’re in the mid of it.
Now let’s make Aurora Bridge
