Constable: Tending bridges tricky for Long Grove
There were a few beefs initially, but Chicago turned its “Cows on Parade” — an assortment of fiberglass bovine artwork — into a popular attraction in 1999.
Some in Long Grove hope this summer's display of hand-decorated, small-scale bridges will do the same. But bridges rely on tension to keep them in place, and this effort has no shortage of tension.
The colorful 6-foot-tall bridges are popping up all over Long Grove as a way “to celebrate the village's anniversaries and have some fun,” says Marcia Marshall, a community organizer behind the Long Grove Neighbors group that kicked off “Loving Long Grove: A Celebration” in the town settled 180 years ago and incorporated 60 years ago.
However, officials from the village and the Long Grove Business and Community Partners say they aren't joining in the mini-bridge campaign because Marshall also is the force behind One Long Grove, a political action committee.
And while the mini-bridges are a nod to the one-lane, covered bridge at the entrance to the village's quaint downtown, that iconic bridge needs work and is the focus of debate.
The federal government is willing to contribute funds to make it sturdy and safe, but that means it will become a regular, mundane two-lane bridge, which Long Grove can pay to adorn with a roof to preserve the covered bridge title.
Others say the village can restore the 1906 iron truss bridge, its roof and its one-way passage.
Like the bridge, the downtown itself is at a crossroads.
Some well-known stores have closed, and signs advertise vacant buildings for sale.
“The mom-and-pop stores are having a hard time in this economy. Long Grove is no different,” says Village President Angie Underwood. Underwood was a trustee when the beloved Apple Haus, a Long Grove institution famous for pies, cider, doughnuts and jellies, closed in 2012.
The mini-bridge campaign came together after Fidelity Wes Builders, using lumber donated by Hines Supply, put together 25 kits of cedar decking and plywood that volunteer groups could assemble and paint to create 30-by-48-inch bridges, each attached to a 6-foot-tall frame.
“We spent five or six days building the bridges,” says Warren Smith of Kildeer who, along with Mike DeMar of Long Grove, form Fidelity Wes.
The company has an office in the heart of Long Grove and an interest in the village's development plans.
“It's worked out to be a great community project,” says DeMar, as he shows off some of the more artsy bridges around town.
Maybe Long Grove's troubled waters are growing calmer.
While Underwood doesn't embrace how the bridge project came to be, she supports the goal of promoting Long Grove.
In her “Life in Long Grove” blog, Underwood posted a photo of the “All Lives Matter Here” rainbow bridge sponsored by Rachel Perkal and her employees at Epilogue, “A Store of Extraordinary Things.”
“I like the sentiment,” she said.
Maybe, organizers say, the mini-bridges will bring attention to the Long Grove Concert Series, which kicks off its 11th season at 4 p.m. today with a concert by string trio Harpeth Rising across from the Village Tavern on Old McHenry Road.
Underwood, Marshall and others tout new businesses, such as ChatterBox, with craft beers and food, Broken Earth Winery, Village Pizza & Barbecue and Fred Astaire Dance Studio. And Long Grove's three-day Chocolate Fest in May drew a record 50,000 people.
“I don't know if it's going to work or not, but they certainly are trying,” Barbara Aragona, a clerk at Lucy & Ethel's, a Hollywood memorabilia shop in Long Grove, says of the “Loving Long Grove” bridges.
The bridges go up for auction Sept. 18 at a free gala benefiting the Northern Illinois Food Bank, Marshall says.
The bridge that inspires it all will be the subject of public hearings in the spring, the village president says.
Her husband Aaron Underwood, who also is president of the Long Grove Historical Society, writes eloquently about the bridge he calls a “queen” protecting “a quaint, historic-themed island in a vast ocean of suburbia.”
“I like it the way it is. I like the one-lane aspect to it,” Angie Underwood says. “You have to stop. You pause for a moment and realize you are entering a place a little different, almost like you are going back in time.”
A time and place that continues to evolve as it learns how use tension to build bridges.