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A tale of two bridges…

By Brian | August 31, 2010 | Share on Facebook

Someone at work pointed this out to me the other day.

Here is the world-famous Sydney Harbor bridge in Sydney, Australia, which people travel from all over the world to see, climb, and photograph the surrounding scenery from, particularly the famous opera house:

And here is the not-at-all famous Bayonne Bridge in Bayonne, New Jersey, which people typically only think about if it’s mentioned on the local traffic report, and wouldn’t climb it unless they worked for the State of New Jersey and were being paid to paint or repair it:

Odd how differently we treat these two structures, given that they are almost identical bridges.

Just goes to show: context is EVERYTHING…

Topics: Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “A tale of two bridges…”

  1. Jeff Porten says at September 4th, 2010 at 7:33 pm :
    Hmm. I think the issue here might be one of subculture.

    Most of the pictures of Sydney I’ve seen emphasize the Opera House, the skyline, and the waterway. The bridge is impressive, but it’s not the centerpiece. So I don’t know that it’s viewed as esthetically more pleasing than, say, Bayonne’s.

    OTOH, among the engineering types, there’s no question that the value of a bridge is the number of problems that had to be solved in building it.

    And for what it’s worth: I’d argue that the most famous bridge in New Jersey is in Trenton, with the TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES sign. That one was massively famous in mid-century.

  2. Brian says at September 5th, 2010 at 3:23 pm :
    Only because I know a couple of people who have done it, I know that the Sydney Harbor Bridge is one of the main tourist attractions in the harbor. People pay good money to tether themselves to a walking track on the structure, climb up and over it, stopping along the way to take all those pictures you’ve seen of the Opera House, the skyline and the waterway…