Columns

Hosey: Broken bridges close the loop and keep us safe

No matter who thought it up, whether it was now retired Joliet Police Officer Joe Clement, as Mayor Bob O’Dekirk claimed, or if it happened to be somebody else, as others insisted, there’s no denying that raising the Jefferson Street bridge after the Black Lives Matter rally of May 31 was a good idea.

The way the mayor told it, arsonists were planning to cross the river and set fire to the Rialto Square Theatre, and they might have gotten away with it too if it were not for Clement, whom O’Dekirk called a “hero.”

A Joliet police source said it was actually someone from the sheriff’s office that asked for the bridge to be raised, and the sheriff’s office put out a statement saying that it was done to protect the courthouse and not the Rialto. But why quibble over the details? Either way, it was proven that this was the correct course of action, as the very next day, the Illinois Department of Transportation raised the Jefferson Street bridge once again and it hasn’t come down since.

You can call it a coincidence and you might even be right about that, but in the nine months and counting that the Jefferson Street bridge has stretched into the sky like a gigantic middle finger raised in the direction of the looters and the vandals on the wrong side of the river, the Rialto has remained unscathed and so has the courthouse. And perhaps a little bit of thanks is owed to IDOT for keeping them that way.

While we’re thanking IDOT for ensuring the preservation of the Rialto and the courthouse, we may as well express our gratitude for continuing to keep the Brandon Road bridge out of service for as long as it has.

Does anyone even remember the last time the Brandon Road bridge was open? The problem is supposedly due to its troublesome “center lock mechanism,” a contraption so finicky that if the bridge’s alignment is the slightest bit askew — even by just a thousandth of an inch — all bets are off.

That might be what the IDOT wants you to think, but isn’t it possible — if not actually probable — that the bridge has been shut down to keep vandals and firebugs away from yet another of the area’s venerable institutions: the Cellar Gentlemen’s Club just up Patterson Road?

When you really take a good, hard look at it, the indefinite closure of the Jefferson Street bridge in the center of Joliet’s downtown and of the Brandon Road bridge to the south is beautiful in its symmetry and utterly efficient in protecting local landmarks like the Rialto and the Cellar. You might even consider the system somewhat of a “closed loop,” one that not only provides obstacles to riotous vandals but also keeps truck traffic off local roads.

The efficiency of this system is a testament to the same sort of closed loop proposed by NorthPoint development for the enormous industrial complex it wants to build in the face of overwhelming opposition. NorthPoint’s detractors would be well-served by taking note of how smoothly the closed loop around downtown Joliet works before scoffing at the one for the planned industrial development and the bridge over Route 53 that will make it all possible.

Yes, the NorthPoint bridge will keep local roads free of tractor-trailers, and with luck will thwart any arsonists on the prowl around Elwood as well.

• Joe Hosey is the editor of The Herald-News. You can reach him at 815-280-4094, at jhosey@shawmedia.com or on Twitter @JoeHosey.

Joseph Hosey

Joseph Hosey

Joe Hosey became editor of The Herald-News in 2018. As a reporter, he covered the disappearance of Stacy Peterson and criminal investigation of her husband, former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson. He was the 2015 Illinois Journalist of the Year and 2014 National Press Club John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award winner.