The Bridge They Built From Condemned Steel

In 2009, a construction crew in Pittsburgh demolished the old Civic Arena, and thousands of tons of structural steel sat in a salvage yard, tagged for scrap. No contractor wanted it. The beams were oddly curved, custom-fabricated for a retractable dome that no longer existed. For three years, that steel rusted in the rain. Then a nonprofit called Bridging the Gap needed material for a pedestrian bridge connecting two neighborhoods separated by a highway — communities that hadn't been able to walk to each other's churches, schools, or grocery stores in forty years.…