Trouble Over Bridge

The city of Santa Fe says the Bridge Over Troubled Waters, a 28-foot-tall art installation at the Railyard, is trouble in the making.

“The issue is not the structure as art or any potential political statement that he may or may not be making,” said Jack Hiatt, director of the city’s land use department, of the structure by artist Neil Bernstein. “It is just the engineering of the whole thing and the safety and welfare of folks in and around El Museo.”

Hiatt sent a letter Monday to El Museo Cultural director Tom Romero to that effect. It was Romero who invited Bernstein to bring his installation, officially called Golden Gates/Bridge Over Troubled Waters, to Santa Fe, where it was erected in back of El Museo next to the railroad tracks.

The letter says El Museo Cultural has two choices: either correct the issues and provide the city with a certified engineer’s report by early next week or immediately remove the structure.

Hiatt said he sent building and permit officials and other staff over to look at the structure last week when he heard it had fallen down once. He had also received a request from the Railyard managers to inspect it. The city staffers told Hiatt it was unsafe, so Hiatt went personally to look at the structure on Sunday. He, too, concluded the installation was unsafe.

Bernstein is skeptical. His installation provoked controversy earlier this month when an El Paso veteran objected to people using spray paint and markers to write on an American flag in the installation and attach old shoes, bras, hats, dollar bills and passport folders to the fabric. The work is considered a memorial to the many immigrants who die in the desert entering the United States illegally.

“The thing about safety is smoke and mirrors,” Bernstein said. “They just don’t want it up for their grand opening. ... What’s happening here is that the commercialization of the Railyard into high-end gallery space and retail space is superseding the process of serving the public.”

But, Hiatt said, “I’m not even that familiar with it. It’s the whole safety issue.”

About three weeks ago, the assemblage was found collapsed over the roof of the museum. Bernstein said the structure had been vandalized, since a strap was cut that had secured a gate and other straps holding the structure in place had been removed. An eyewitness said wind blew it over, but Bernstein said that was possible only if the securing straps had been tampered with.

Richard Czoski, executive director of the Santa Fe Railyard Community Corporation, said, “We are very concerned about the safety and have been for several weeks. We have no opinion about its art or social statement, our concern is the public safety. The structure to our knowledge has not been adequately engineered. It has either been knocked over and fallen over at least once already. It’s right next to the railroad track, so it has the potential of falling over onto the tracks.”

Hiatt said he is also concerned about the city’s responsibility in the matter. “We’re going to open (the Railyard) in two or three weeks and it’s El Museo’s liability,” said Hiatt. “But ... if something did happen, you can guarantee the city is going to be a defendant (in any lawsuit).”

Romero said he didn’t want to comment until he had a chance to review the city’s letter with Bernstein. “I reviewed it with our board and I need to review it with him,” Romero said. “They’re (the city and Railyard) looking at the safety of it. We know this has been an issue.”

Bernstein said he’s invested $52,000 of his own money in the Santa Fe installation. “A good portion are the improvements Richard Czoski insisted on — so-called safety improvements,” he said. “They made the piece inaccessible to the public by putting the fence around it with barbed wire.”

If You Go

Artist Neil Bernstein is holding a demonstration at 10 a.m. today at the site of his installation, Golden Gates/ Bridge Over Troubled Waters to protest the city’s letter to El Museo Cultural to either take down the exhibit or hire an engineer to have it made structurally sound and submit a report on it.