Opinion | Rebuilding the Key Bridge might fix Baltimores reputation

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March feels like a news story that grows smaller each day, a distant object in the rearview mirror. But let me draw your attention back to Baltimore, because the largest city in Maryland merits our consideration.

There is the obvious reason: When a bridge topples like a shattered Tinkertoy, that should get us all thinking about infrastructure and safety. Just a week ago, a barge rammed into a bridge in Galveston, Tex.

But attention spans are short, and the news cycle is serving up a steaming buffet of torrid, toxic, tawdry, taxing and just plain peculiar developments. (A presidential candidate facing a porn star in a hush money trial might have been on some people’s 2024 bingo cards, but I doubt anyone forecast another candidate saying a worm had eaten part of his brain.)

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Baltimore’s effort to rebuild deserves our attention for another reason: Baltimore’s brokenness has been a source of entertainment and even amusement for decades. Americans long ago set their gaze on a long list of TV shows, movies, documentaries, books and podcasts that focused on Baltimore’s challenges with policing, education, poverty, drugs, clergy abuse, hyper-segregation and inequities of all kinds.

“The Corner.” “The Wire.” “The Keepers.” “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” “Homicide: Life on the Street.” “We Own This City.” And don’t forget the John Waters films. The Laura Lippman books. Season 1 of the podcast “Serial.” This is a roll call of creative excellence. Best of class. Top of genre. And precisely because they were all so good, we could not turn away. These shows mirrored Baltimore’s problems while at the same time cementing its gritty reputation. Folks began referring to the city as “Bodymore.”

Nothing compelled the consumers of all that content to move with dispatch to fix the brokenness because so much of it was fiction. But it wasn’t entirely imaginary, either.

I don’t think any TV show has broken my heart quite like Season 4 of HBO’s “The Wire,” which looked at Baltimore’s antiquated school system through the lives of middle school students who couldn’t escape the magnetic pull of the streets. The storylines were gut-wrenching and tragic. Perhaps none more so than the sad-sack teen named Dukie, a smart kid with no safety net. Neglected at home, bullied in school and deemed too soft to survive the thug culture of drug dealing, Dukie had a knack for salvaging cast-off electronics but was a heartbreaking example of unfulfilled promise.

At one point, when he asked a good Samaritan adult, “Like, how do you get from here to the rest of the world?,” he was speaking a hard truth that stained the lives of so many real-life kids in his city. Kids who could not imagine venturing outside their neighborhood, let alone crossing the Key Bridge or any other avenue to explore better, safer worlds. Came the answer, “I wish I knew.” And that was pretty much the answer in real life, too.

The problems are evident. The path to fix them is elusive.

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I admit I am more sensitive to these tragic storylines because I married into a Baltimore family. The city is fiercely protective of its reputation because the wounds are real. Because the city that produced Thurgood Marshall, Edgar Allan Poe and Johns Hopkins University is known more for murder and police corruption. Dashed hopes and heartbreak produce a special kind of loyalty and a defensive pride of place built on a belief that a better day had better be coming soon.

And now, the entire world has watched a massive cargo ship take down a bridge in less than 40 seconds. Brokenness on display again.

But what if, this time, the tear in the city’s fabric provided a dose of inspiration instead of entertainment? Figuring out how to rebuild a bridge happens to be a pretty good symbol for this fractured moment in America. It’s a test of our innovation and a test of how well city, state, county and federal officials might work together with unions, lawyers, construction companies and the conglomerates whose ships will be returning to the Port of Baltimore, carrying materials needed to put a new bridge in place.

The National Transportation Safety Board released a report last week that pinpointed what led to the bridge collapse. The vessel experienced two power outages in the wee hours of the morning, sending it off course. It’s a preliminary assessment but swift work nonetheless. As I read it, I imagined how powerful it might be to have a similar accounting of what led to the crumbling in the city’s other institutions — and a similar display of resolve to fix what’s broken.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has been photographed wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Maryland Tough, Baltimore Strong.”

Sure, it’s just a T-shirt. And it might be a bit of political theater. But I applaud the message. The “Boston Strong” mantra after the marathon bombing in 2013 stoked a deep well of resilience in another wounded city. That “Maryland Tough, Baltimore Strong” message might just be the prayer and the promise the city needs right now. An invitation to watch what’s coming. A new bridge in Baltimore — and a symbolic blueprint for rebuilding broken institutions and the collective and sustained work it will take to get us there.

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