Chutzpah…

I’m not normally a big TV watcher, but lately that’s shifted a bit and I’m finding some pretty cool stuff. Not a big fan of “reality”, TV or otherwise; nor do sitcoms or cop shows make the cut. I generally head for the documentary channels first, and last week chance brought me to a terrific documentary about the George Washington Bridge.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about the GWB a lot lately. I’ve lived in the circumference of NYC my entire life and have always loved that bridge. One of my very first memories is driving south on the Henry Hudson Pkwy and my Aunt Norma telling me to wave to George and Martha living up there, at the very top of the east tower (if you squint just right you will see them, of course). I would look very hard for them and wave with just a little skepticism. Now I cross it weekly to see my own granddaughters who live five minutes away in Harlem (upper deck preferably, I have my system in place). I’ve traveled over the GWB probably fifty times a year over half a century, been tortured in extraterrestrial traffic jams, bemoaned a forgotten Yankee game and marveled at the view in both directions. I‘ve admired its beauty as an object- how it spans the river; the contrast between the urban New York side and the pastoral Palisades in New Jersey. I’m designer enough to get excited by how the odd asymmetry in its connection to the earth on each side is a physical manifestation of that dichotomy. But I took it for granted, as we do so many of the incredible man-designed, man-built monoliths among us in this place where building has always been scaled for giants.

Watching the history of its construction, I was more and more amazed by the brilliance, prescience and pure chutzpah of those who built this bridge. To create a structure capable of carrying millions of pounds of weight in shifting and complex conditions every day for 70 years; to see future and build in capacity for expansion to double the volume, to do so in the age of slide rules, and to make it something so incredibly beautiful takes nothing less than New York scale balls. And a New York story it is.

Othmar Ammann, an émigré from Switzerland and a Port Authority employee, was the engineer responsible for the GWB and many others of note in our amazing region- the Verrazano, the Bayonne and the Whitestone are also credited to him. Clearly he was a man who was inspired beyond the ken of the rest of us normal and average thinkers. In true New York fashion, the back story of power brokering and posturing is an interesting one, but what struck me in this story was that- unlike the “Robert Moses” of the world, or the “Donald Trumps”- until now I have never heard his name. A quiet and reserved man with remarkable vision, a biographer described him as someone who intuitively understood and….felt…how bridge structures function.

It’s that “feeling” thing that stopped me. Because that’s exactly the key, isn’t it? When experience intersects with instinct to overrule “good judgment”, when we know in our gut what is right- despite all appearances to the contrary, despite all arguments against it. When we see the tree- clearly- within the forest…and have the confidence to know it’s the tree. When we build the bridge that by all accounts is foolish…

In design- as in life- there is intuition. Some of us have it for structural or spatial decisions, others for business or science. Malcolm Gladwell wrote most eloquently about the root of intuition in “Blink”- that gut feeling we follow when we know a truth from somewhere in our center despite the odds against it. One of those interviewed in the program on Ammann pointed out that others have followed his logic and his formulas only to find failure. It’s like watching a great athlete or performer- there is that extra modicum of “mojo” that takes it beyond the ordinary, and you know it when you see it.

1931 was a challenging year- not unlike what we are going through right now; the financial collapse three years earlier had left tremendous insecurity and financial suffering in its wake. Interestingly, both the George Washington Bridge AND the Empire State building were completed that year. And even more interesting? Both of them were completed on time and under budget.

Point of contrast? In 1940 “Galloping Gertie” (so christened by construction workers) was born across the Tacoma Narrows in Washington. She lasted four months before one of the most spectacular bridge failures in history; it took 10 years to rebuild and a mere 40 for her capacity to be overstrained, requiring another parallel bridge to be built.

So? here’s my thought about all of this. Tough times bring creative solutions and less room for either waste or foolishness; financial leanness means there is little margin for error and much need for that creativity, and these times give birth to great ideas that last. It’s the chutzpah to channel resources, the mojo to see past the present struggle and the moxie to take the risk that will build a better bridge.

Gotta love New Yawk.

For a great clip of the Tacoma bridge collapse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs