Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25240
BRIDGE CLIMBERS SCALE THE HEIGHTS OF URBAN ADVENTURE text: brad wieners "You need to know that this is illegal," John Law says, making probing eye contact with each of us, trying to measure our readiness and detect potentially disastrous levels of insobriety. "If we get caught we could face a fine of $2,000 or six months in jail. From this point on you have to take responsibility for the decision to go on." He rubs his moustache-this week it's a 19th-century presidential job that connects to mutton chops. Clad in a dryer-shrunk sweater and a too-narrow sports coat that exaggerates his strapping shoulders and arms, Law exudes a contagious enthusiasm even as he warns us that we're at risk of a watery grave and a prison term. There are nine of us standing on the littered corner of Bowery and Canal, downtown NYC, at midnight, and the law is very much on our minds. "If we do get caught," Law continues, "don't run and don't lie. they ask you, 'Did you climb the bridge?' Say 'Yes.' If they've seen us on the bridge tower and you lie, it'll piss 'em off, and if you run you're ask- ing to get hurt. If we get stopped as a group, let me do the talking." Wily, affable and matter-of-fact, Law speaks with an easy confi- dence-the confidence of experience. Twenty years ago, as a broke, punk runaway, Law made a project of climbing every bridge in Gotham, a cheap thrill he never outgrew. He has outgrown the recklessness of those days, however, and emerged as a longtime member of the San Francisco Cacophony Society, a group of free spirits who meet for pot lucks, book groups, BASE jumps and sewer tours among other things. Within our group are a few veterans of these escapades, a pair on a first date (or so it seems), and a few fast friends made at a party an hour earlier. Soon, we're hurtling across a concrete lane divider and beginning our promenade along the closed, still unfinished pedestrian walkway out onto the span of the Manhattan Bridge.