Two weeks ago, the new version of the Sixth Street Viaduct was officially opened, bridging downtown L.A.’s Arts District to Boyle Heights. Almost immediately, it became the talk of the town, which, hey, not bad for a bridge to go so viral in an era of such limited attention spans.
But the frenzied discussion about this extensively refurbished spanner is not due to any of its architectural details or impressive load-bearing capacity. Instead, the controversy appears to be mounting over its public reception, treatment, and sense of ownership, including what right, if any, do the people of this great city and the actual neighborhood book-ending the bridge have to enjoy it in their own particular ways.
Meanwhile, the bridge has been shut down to car traffic for multiple days.
The new Sixth Street Bridge, as it’s more commonly known, was under fire from the get-go. It replaced the original Sixth Street Bridge, which was built in 1932 and, since then, quickly became an icon of its own, featured in a gang of movies, shows, and music videos, including Grease, Colors, Terminators 2 and 3, Kanye’s “Jesus Walks,” Kendrick’s “Humble,” and assorted zombie, Purge, and Purge-like films.
No matter what it looked like or how much concrete comprised it, it was locally embraced and beloved because it belonged to Los Angeles, hearkening back to a more civically defensive era before East Coasters were falling over themselves to move here, and L.A. was still slandered far and wide throughout the nation.