I'd want to say during my time in the area I'd crossed the Key Bridge countless times...

[Tommy Carcetti]

In actuality, I did not.

I did cross it a fair amount of times, however. Enough to count. Enough to say I drove over it.

But my main experience with the Key Bridge was looking at it from a distance.

Our main means of crossing the Patapsco was always the Harbor Tunnel. And whenever we'd exit the tunnel--coming from the south to the north, I'd look over to the right and see the marine terminals of the port, and beyond that--the Key Bridge.

I've always had an odd, subconscious fascination with large, hulking structures, and the Key Bridge was most definitely that. Massive and steel, with crisscrossed girders, it demanded your attention.

And now it's gone. Within seconds, it was gone.

And lest you think I'm getting overly sentimental over something that in actuality is nothing more than a pile of steel and concrete, when faced with human tragedies that also include the loss of a notable physical structure, we tend to focus on that structure as an overall symbol of that tragedy.

Most notable of all were the Twin Towers during 9-11. And there have been other examples, too.

We focus on the structure because whenever multiple human lives have been lost--and countless lives are affected because of those losses--it always seems unfair to focus in on any one life, lest it makes any of the others seem less important.

But the loss of a structure, a civic symbol, a familiar landmark--that's something that the entire community can collectively mourn without bias or subjectivity, and in a way grieve for all of the lives lost together, one in the same.

The Key Bridge is the opening shot of "Hard Cases," the fourth episode of the second season of The Wire--David Simon's magnum opus and his Warts-and-All twisted love letter to Baltimore. There, Frank Sobatka--the dock workers union head played so wonderfully by Chris Bauer--can been seen admiring a view of the bridge when he is approached by his nephew Nick.

"What's up?"

"Great view. Harbor, I mean."

"It's fucking picturesque, it's what it is."

Goodbye, Francis Scott Key Bridge of Baltimore. You were fucking picturesque.