Thousands of locks bearing thousands of memories were removed from the Roberto Clemente Bridge Wednesday morning. Some were clipped with bolt cutters, while others were sawed off as sparks flew into the snowy air.
“There’s a story behind each one of them,” said Stephen Shanley, director of Allegheny County Public Works. “It’s exciting that these will be repurposed.”
Many of the estimated 11,000 locks had romantic inscriptions, or memorable dates. People have been attaching them to the bridge for years, much like at the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris.
When workers with Mosites Construction are finished removing the locks, they’ll find a new life at the nonprofit Industrial Arts Workshop in Hazelwood. High schoolers enrolled in art programs there will “turn [them] into sculptural material to tell a new story, and also represent the original story and try to represent the hopes and dreams of all of the folks who have put their time and energy to attaching locks to the bridge,” according to IAW executive director Tim Kaulen.
Good morning from the Clemente Bridge, where workers are removing the “love locks.” They’ll go to an arts facility in Hazelwood! @905wesa pic.twitter.com/DqLcfVOHzK
— Katie Blackley (@kate_blackley) March 9, 2022
Exactly what that will look like will be determined by the students, Kaulen said. They’ll conceptualize the project and create something likely during a summer camp at the workshop.
“When recycling materials as opposed to just buying stock off the shelf, artists are able to use the history and the storytelling aspect of the original purpose,” Kaulen said.
There isn’t a timeline yet for the project’s completion, but at the removal, there seemed to be interest among officials in showing it publicly in the Pittsburgh area some day.
