Turntable Bridge at Black Rock

There is a section of the Niagara Thruway just before entering the downtown corridor of the city that is below the level of the Black Rock Canal.  Pavement curves, buttressed by cement walls that keep the slow water on the other side of the embankment, dipping down for the reason that I witnessed for the first time in my life.

As I drove south along the route, the first part of the curve tipped traffic inland, following whatever geologic sense designed it as such.  I remember a story from my mother of how my aunt almost crashed into this wall when her poodle attempted to jump into the front seat while she was driving, so I have a history of caution with this part.  Imagine the astounded sensation when, today, a monstrous contraption swung slow above the traffic at this curve, an assemblage of knuckled ironwork that was one end of the International Railroad Bridge.  I knew the bridge would turn to accommodate boat traffic, but had not ever been under the mass of iron geegaws that say so, or recognized that one Gargantuan iron arm was made to swing over the roadway.

Of course the road had to go lower into another stratification of rock, or we'd be without our heads.  The bridge was constructed in 1873, long before President Eisenhower made his highways, so the bridge had first dibs.  Like the Peace Bridge, the stone piers supporting the spans are pointed, with the apex lying towards the current, wider at the base; this permits the winter ice from Lake Erie to be broken up without the pressure of the frozen Great Lakes crushing the form.

The image of the great end of rust and bolts gyring from the center of the turntable was followed by one of a small sailboat motoring up this Black Rock Canal, which had been dug out to avoid dealing with the 12 mph current of the Niagara River.  The immense bridge had shifted its tons for the sake of a single craft, completing a noble bow towards opening the way safely to calmer Lake waters.  To signal your desire to pass through, sound one long; to ask for passage further up at the Ferry Street lift bridge which employs the idea of filling a colossal tank with water to lift the walkway, sound one long, two short.  This is if there is no radio aboard.

The water pulls people to the banks of the river and the length of the Bird Island Pier, perhaps that will be a summer project, to get to know more about the freshwater engineering that permitted the City of Buffalo to be developed from swamp to arable land.  Jetties of riprap prevent storm waves from battering us, and allow commercial and pleasure craft to safely enter.  Recent engineering projects have bolstered Strawberry Island, an area larger fish spawn around, and funding has introduced a dredging project for the Buffalo River that intends to restore freshness, clarity, and fishing.  There are good things happening, I wish there was more front page news published about them.

Spring has arrived indeed, for the large atomic spiders are spinning nightly outside the windows and lord knows, they get inside, too.  I walked through a dark hallway, for it is never pitch black in here with all the traffic reflections, and I can mostly see where I am going, except: there was a brief tickle on my arm that descended to a leg that when I turned on the light revealed a brown, plum-sized object crawling on the tile of the bathroom.  Plum-sized, my friends. Today, another was crouched in the frame of the inner window.  Today again, one slender yellow dangly was gingerly picking it's way up the bathroom wall.  They are, I am sorry, now dead.  By the time summer gets here, I will be numb to spider mania and start catching them to release.  Right now, it's still sudden squishment.

The promised thunderstorm has not appeared; maybe it will come tonight, for evidence of a temperature change is now roiling in a shapeless fog hovering over the water. Today was productive and sweet, the errands efficient and successful, and the patch of catnip by Chase Hall on campus replenished a bit of last year's stock for the cupboard.  Can you sail upwind, past rougher currents and sandbars?  Remember the bridge that turns and the drawbridge that seesaws upwards, both significant in metaphor and real time.  Turn home to rest, tie yourself to your moorings, furl sails, coil lines.  Let dreams come.  Let dreams come.  Good night.