The sudden emergency closure of the Washington Bridge has disrupted lives across our state. As we report on this massive failure of infrastructure, we’ll continue to deepen our engagement with you—our community. How has this crisis affected you? Where have you found hardship, support, and hope?
This space is for your stories - the struggles, the workarounds, and the ways people have come together to explore what’s possible. We’ll be sharing them here.
“When the Washington Bridge closed, at first I was like, ok, it’s going to be closed. They’re going to do some inspections. It will be open in a week. And obviously that’s not accurate. And then It kind of hits you. It takes a while to sink in.
I’m a business owner. Businesses are getting hit. It really affected the foot traffic in and out of the building. Seriously. People were not coming. Let me tell you, I see these people driving by stuck in traffic, and by the looks on their faces, they want to kill somebody. They’re not stopping. They just want to get home.
And then we realized, boy we need to do something. We can’t go like this, losing money. For me I always try to do things the best I can, with all the resources I have. So that’s when I started digging into events, doing more events. New food on the menu. Advertising. Any business can do that, but at a pace that’s comfortable for the business, and you grow. We were in a position where we had to do it all at once. When you’re actually doing it, when you’re in it, you’re not really thinking about it. But then you stop and you realize I shouldn’t be doing business like this.
But I guess at the very core — and I didn’t anticipate this because I’m very business-minded — but what I found I really enjoy is that there are groups of people who come in, and they’ll say to me, ‘If you didn’t put this business in, we never would have met.’ They become friends coming here. It’s just really cool. So at the end of the day, that’s the perspective. Something positive is coming out of you and me being here. Some of these people maybe would have been traveling somewhere else, but they didn’t because it’s right nearby. You’re giving something to the community.”
