I'm starting to feel bad that I'm getting all this First to Review credit for Cleveland landmarks. If you've ever spent much time with Clevelanders, you know that they're a generous, proud, and humble bunch. Those last two adjectives, "proud" and "humble," might seem contradictory, but people from Cleveland are rightly proud of the sense of community that exists in the city itself. For all the popular-culture and economic abuse Cleveland has taken over the years, the people still very much love their city. Not only the idea of their city, but the city itself. They're humble too; you generally won't hear them spouting off about their superiority in any field--except maybe sports, but that's also conflicted.
Cleveland's humbleness, though, can border on neurosis, as the city definitely has an inferiority complex when it comes to other "great cities" in the Midwest, whatever that means. The city is all too willing to spend way too much public money on stuff that doesn't really matter, like Browns Stadium, when things that do matter, like public schools, are falling apart.
The Veterans Memorial Bridge, known locally as the Detroit-Superior Bridge, exemplifies a lot of the qualities of Clevelanders themselves. It's not the biggest, flashiest, most well known bridge. During the day, it's not terribly beautiful. But it gets the job done, and there's something downright enjoyable about driving and walking across the bridge, especially if you're going from the Near West Side to Downtown. The court building on the eastern edge of the Cuyahoga River takes away slightly from the view of the Terminal Tower from the bridge (the court building was constructed in 2000), but it's still nice looking at Cleveland's modest skyline.
At night, the bridge is absolutely gorgeous. When I lived in Cleveland, we sometimes referred to the Detroit-Superior Bridge as the Blue Bridge because it was lit blue at night (and in the opening to The Drew Carey Show).
This bridge is the only place in my life I've ever received a moving violation (speeding), which I successfully fought in court. I also used to think it was funny that the bridge was called the Detroit-Superior Bridge, as it seemed to suggest that Clevelanders thought Detroit was a superior city to Cleveland. In fact, the common nickname refers to Detroit and Superior Avenues, the names of the streets that lead to the bridge on either side. Superior Avenue is named after Lake Superior (I believe all five Great Lakes have streets named after them downtown). For a time, I mistakenly believed that Detroit Avenue led directly to a westbound highway that ran to Detroit, Michigan.
Still, it is funny that one of Cleveland's most visible landmarks is partially named after another city. read more