Underfoot is the Blue Bridge, the pedestrian and bicycle crossing over the Grand River that has become one of the most photographed spots in Grand Rapids. The bridge's official name is the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail Bridge, but no one calls it that — its brilliant blue steel arches are simply the Blue Bridge, a landmark that opened in 2001 as part of the city's long effort to reclaim the riverfront as a public amenity rather than an industrial back alley. The Grand River below you is the longest river entirely within Michigan, flowing 252 miles from Jackson County before emptying into Lake Michigan at Grand Haven, about thirty miles west of here.
For the Odawa and Potawatomi people who lived along these banks, the river was highway, fish source, and spiritual geography. For French fur traders in the 1820s, it was the reason to be here at all. For the furniture industry, it was power and transport.
Look upstream and downstream from this bridge and see a river that has been many things to many people, and is now, for the first time in a long time, genuinely beautiful.