For Real Though, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

The culture of disorder takes over L.A.’s new 6th Street Bridge. You’ll never guess what happened next.

Los Angeles spent five years and $588 million to build a new 6th Street Bridge connecting Boyle Heights on the Eastside to downtown L.A. This after spending millions to repair the old 6th Street Bridge before giving up and knocking it down. The new bridge opened to a grand party over two days in mid-July. And it looked glorious.

Officials closed it after two weeks due to “concerns about illegal activity and safety.”

Two. Weeks.

It’s sort of remarkable it took them that long.

What happened? Well, less than a day after the bridge opened, this happened:

Then this happened:

Then people started doing this:

Then, of course, this happened:

Then, ultimately, this happened:

The Los Angeles Police Department a couple of weeks ago announced it would close the 6th Street Bridge “indefinitely.” Then they reopened it. Then, of course, they closed it again because, hey, the bridge belongs to “the community” and “the community”—well, a part of it, anyway—doesn’t have time for niceties like “law” and “order” and “common courtesy.” Now the city is installing speed bumps to curb “dangerous street takeovers.”

“We have to learn to treat our toys well,” Blair Martin, a 33-year-old construction worker, told the Los Angeles Times. “But also, it’s L.A., what are we going to do, let it be pretty?”

Obviously not.

This is one reason among many why we can’t have nice things.

Naturally, some people have a different perspective.

“Fuck your identity politics. Fuck the police. Fuck anyone that whines ‘this is why we can’t have nice things.’”

So says some guy named Erick “El Random Hero” Huerta, a “Boyle Heights legend” and the “longest-standing contributor” to a site called L.A. Taco. I very much like tacos, but I don’t particularly care for Huerta, who labors under the profound misapprehension that a few hundred locals can just decide to take over and deface a viaduct that actually belongs to 4 million Angelenos. What did he expect?

Happily, I live some distance from Boyle Heights and downtown L.A. So, I’m neither “whining” nor “panicking,” as the headline writer of that dumb L.A. Taco piece would have it. If anything, mine is the most pedestrian observation in the world. You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off that OId Lone Ranger.

And you don't shit where you eat.

“While no one is necessarily pro-car-crash in this world,” writes Hadley Tomicki, “the furor in media, both mainstream and social is not sitting well with a lot of locals, who feel the ensuing panic and hand-wringing is merely part of a system that traditionally ignores the needs or desires of the neighborhood to the bridge’s east or targets it outright.”

Hey, fool. People just want to drive across the goddamned bridge. Can they maybe do that without, you know, contemplating “the system” that “traditionally ignores the needs or desires” of Boyle Heights? Matter of fact, is it possible, maybe, that the predominant “desire” of most Boyle Heights residents in this instance is to drive to and from home safely and peacefully, unhindered by speed bumps and without having to deal with douchebag vatos doing burnouts and doughnuts? Maybe? Is this even remotely something worthy of consideration? Could it be why some residents have gathered holding signs saying “RESPECT THE BRIDGE”?

“Personally, I’ve drank in front of the police before, that’s not what they care about,” Steven Ramirez told the L.A. Times. “The cops don’t care about us. It’s the people burning rubber. The people doing doughnuts. The people going up the arches.”

“We enjoy views like this in L.A. It’s like an amusement park here, everybody walking back and forth,” he added.

Which is perfectly cool. Strolling and hanging out on the walkways is one thing. Have a beer, even. Just don’t be a public nuisance.

What Huerta and his idiot ilk seem to want is something else entirely. Their culture is a culture of anarchy. Which, fine. They can posture and “fuck the police” all they want. The cops say otherwise, so who’s whining now? In reality, they get to choose one of two things. Order or disorder. That’s it. Huerta, et al., seem to think option B is possible without repercussions. Their Boyle Heights neighbors and the police clearly have had enough.

Nice bridge you had there for about 18 hours. Too bad you can’t have it anymore.