The Mount Rushmore

of

Pittsburgh Bridges

Pittsburgh is known for many great things: the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Pittsburgh Panthers.

Of course, it doesn’t stop there.

Whether talking about Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller, or curing polio, the list of Pittsburgh’s contributions to greatness goes on and on, much too big to fit on any internet with current limitations of technology and fossil fuels. So we stop here as to not engineer a bridge to resource wars causing bloodshed, pain, sorry, and lack of Great Bridge awareness.

Instead, we have just constructed for you the first section of the long bridge that will take you to the magnificent Mount Rushmore of Pittsburgh Bridges, with beautiful views along the way–-a lot like driving to Key West, when there is not a hurricane.

So we conclude this general Pittsburgh preamble by starting another* relating even more specifically to Pittsburgh Bridges**.

Pittsburgh is often (though not often enough) compared to Venice, two of the greatest Bridge Cities in the world. Perhaps this comparison is because of their amazing histories or their romantic natures, but most probably it is because of their immense number of Bridges–-with a capital “B” once again--the magical structures that allow cities to have such great histories and romances. How, after all, would a great historian be able to get to the ink store to refill the ink needed by their typewriter to record great histories without a bridge to get them to and fro the typewriter supply store? How, also after all, would lovers be able to meet up for a rendezvous if there were a bridgeless gulf between them? A society without bridges is no society at all; it is a lost civilization or just an alligator-infested moat.

Similarly, a Mount Rushmore of Pittsburgh Bridges without any bridge wouldn’t be a Mount Rushmore at all; it would be a blank webpage that nobody would want to visit in complete contrast to this page, which some people have visited. The number 4, mathematicians note, is infinitely higher than the number 0.

But it is not about sheer numbers. If it were, the Other Internet with more web pages and web page hits would be better than far sweeter internets, which we all know is not the case. It is about sheer quality, which is more important to quantity (citation: “Quality over quantity;” Masses, the). After all, there are many (inferior) cities with more (inferior) bridges than Pittsburgh and Venice.

But a lot of bridges does not make a city a Great Bridge City just like a lot of hamburger sales does not make McDonald’s your choice place to meet for a sexy date over a couple of double bacon cheeseburgers (citation: high divorce rates).

It is the bodies of water the bridges traverse, the masses of land that they go back and forth to and such soil’s worthiness of being places to come and go to, which both Pittsburgh and Venice meet the qualifications thereof with exceeding ease.

And of course it is the Bridges themselves.

Pittsburgh, like Venice, has top-shelf Bridges. It is not that they reach high altitudes, for low oxygen levels do not have an inverse relationship to sex appeal. But make no mistake about it, Pittsburgh’s and Venice’s Bridges look really good—and do have high sex appeal, mostly when viewing them from the lenses of the architecture, engineering, or highly-intoxicated communities.

But good looks alone do make a bridge great, for would you rather have a young George Clooney greet you in the emergency room or an even-better-looking mature George Clooney build the bridge you are about to drive over, so poorly fashioned by the actor designing bridges without an engineering degree that it immediately malfunctions (collapses) and plummets you–-along with loved ones travelling as passengers in your car who trusted you to be a responsible driver and make responsible decisions-–to the water below with such suddenness that everyone dies on impact, robbing you of the chance to even get to a hospital and be operated on by a dreamy doctor?

Safety is of the utmost of concern when one delves into a deep discussion of bridges.

The Bridges we will paint a portrait of (that will ultimately look like a Mount Rushmore, and the finest thereof) will not kill you or your family. They were not designed by a famous actor. They were designed by less-famous engineers. They can safely get you over a body of water***. They are Bridges as trustworthy as any, who–-like George Washington–-have never told a lie (citation: Washington, George). They are Bridges worthy of constructing a Mount Rushmore with. If Washington, with his many faults that far outweigh those of these Bridges, deserves to be on a Mount Rushmore, so too do these Bridges.

Of course Pittsburgh, by commissioning us–-not in the traditional sense of city officials, but in the more organic, natural, and spiritual sense of the actual city itself, which evidently calls great people to do great things (citation: this Mount Rushmore) not much unlike God used to do (citation: the Bible)--to construct this Mount Rushmore of its extraordinary Bridges, Pittsburgh once again has put itself ahead of the times as the first city with a Mount Rushmore of its Bridges.

It is only natural Pittsburgh would be the first to accomplish this feat, as it was the first city to do a lot of great things, such as win 3, 4, and 6 Super Bowls. This is meant in no way to gloat or act superior to Venice for constructing a Mount Rushmore of Bridges before Venice, but rather to act as an inspiration for Venice, to assure that it does not rest on its laurels and sink into the water it sits on, to set the bar high for the Greatest Bridge Cities of the world (oh what a Mount Rushmore that will be one day: the Mount Rushmore of Bridge Cities!).

Once Venice sees this Mount Rushmore of Pittsburgh Bridges and inspired to construct its own, it will once again have a beauty comparable to Pittsburgh’s.

Such a highlighting of Venice’s Bridges from the construction of a Mount Rushmore for their Bridges will undoubtedly result in tourists flocking to Venice in ways not seen in the world’s ungreat bridge cities or ungreat bridgeless cities or mediocre overpass cities.

So after the construction of the Mount Rushmore of Venice Bridges is complete, go visit Venice and see if our prediction of many tourists there was correct. Whether or not you will then call this paragraph prophetic is up to you. And if you wish to achieve immortality like the Great Scribes of Old by translating these words into a less-widely spoken language like the Scribes of Old did for the Prophets of Old and writing them in beautiful handwriting on a scroll which you stash somewhere somewhat obscure—but convenient enough for curious people to find later, while also providing a nearby dictionary to translate it—that is up to you and the amount of alcohol you have consumed and likely if you have less than marginal employment and more than marginal skill. But we, along with other (ir)rational people, think it might be good for you to do that (citation pending).

So with such preambles necessary for an opening ceremony of this stature under our collective belts #WeAreAllConnectedAfterAll #JohnDonneWasRight #Spirituality, while you look upon this beauty with childlike wonder (but undoubtedly an adult-like feeling in your loins), if not single, do so with your spouse so they don’t accuse you of intellectual or emotional infidelity and retaliate upon you in a storm of jealousy that only the best-constructed hypothetical bridges could withstand.

Welcome to Key West—

Or something greater:

The Mount Rushmore of Pittsburgh Bridges.

*The next section of bridge, much like the Seven Mile Bridge could be divided into sections between the islands as you proceed forth towards your highly-sought-after tourist destination of Key West/Pittsburgh Bridges with continued scenic views as you approach.

**“Bridges” is capitalized here out of respect for the fact that all Pittsburgh Bridges are proper.

***Pittsburgh’s lone recent bridge accident occurred on a not water-crossing bridge and is not included on our Mount Rushmore.