Victoria street bridge Richmond and Hawthorn

In the middle of the nineteenth century the Yarra River was the edge of the greater Melbourne area. When the bridges were then constructed over the river, the Yarra took on its role as the border between the world of the great unwashed and respectable citizens of Melbourne. But the underside of the bridge has played another role for people throughout its history that of a place of refuge, escape and shelter for people from both sides of the river.
As we run, walk, cycle and drive across the bridge we cannot see what lies beneath our feet. The underside of the bridge in recent years has been inhabited by a group of homeless men. The men filled the space with a midden of domestic refuse collected from neighbouring households and spent their day smoking and watching the silent river. The rubbish and the homeless men are now gone and all that remains is the graffiti scrawled upon the iron girders of the bridge. The graffiti includes a note from a badly depressed man, prophetic notes and obscene words. Access to the to the bridge is blocked on one side by the railing for the new walking track and on the other by a wilderness of plants that are attempting to seize to control of the now unoccupied environment like a mini post apocalyptic world
The bridge is at the present time being renovated and because of concerns about the soundness of the structure the trams that used to stop on top of the bridge have ceased to do so for fear that they will place Unecesary strain on the structure. As the larger vehicles charge across the bridge it shakes like a man with Parkinson decease and the loose pieces of steel rattle and the noise is deafening.
Thirty years ago those sheltering under this bridge would have looked across at the Vickers ruwolt factory and a collection of assorted industrial buildings and in the distance the city. Today they look across the river at the dinners at fenix restaurant people in their apartment’s bicycles and people on the bicycle track, smoking office workers standing in front of their office buildings. What we are seeing is the birth of a new cosmopolitan environment for the washed ones If development of the area continues in this way we probably will not able to tell where the city ends and Richmond begins.