SAFETY NET - LUMINOUS VEIL OF AL BIRNEY

After posting this morning, I had more thoughts about the nobility of the suicide-prevention fence.   I knew I should go back and visit it more closely because when I saw the bridge before I was with someone who was driving so I couldn’t stop. 

 

I was hoping to find a plaque or other information about the fence.   The wind was really blowing hard and it was about 15F.   With the mean wind chill it was not conducive to bridge walking.  But there was a constant stream of pedestrians, bicyclists and cars transversing the viaduct.  Under the deck I could hear the trolleys rumbling through. 

 

There was a small blue 12” square aluminum plaque screwed into the concrete abutment on the East side.   

 

 

 
LUMINOUS VEIL

 

The frigid wind was right in my face - making my eyes water...

Not only did Mr. Birney [1] perserver and achieve his pragmatic goal of saving lives - and saving the horrific trauma to the “healthy” living public that every crumpled, bloodied body on the ground below must have wrought - Mr. Birney also created a working sculpture.   

 

What more beautiful sculpture can there be than a sculpture like the Luminous Veil that is built to help those less mentally committed to life than the sculptor and the sculptor’s financing patrons?  

 

When you read the San Francisco Chronicle’s description of Mr. Birney’s efforts [2] , focus, and dedication - then you will know that Schumpeter [3] would see Mr. Birney as an inspirational entrepreneur as well as a humanitarian and advocate. 

 

We needed a Mr. Birney in Cleveland in 1999 when the Cleveland City Council was debating the implementation of a “point of sale” inspection - like Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights have.   Perhaps if Mr. Birney had  lobbied Cleveland City Council then - as hard as the banks, developers, builders and corporate interests lobbied to prevent passage of “point of sale” - the areas in Glenville and elsewhere which Mary Beth Matthews has photographed [4] - would remain at least as healthy as Shaker and Cleveland Heights are now. 

 

But Mr. Birney wasn’t in Cleveland in 1999, so the City Council did not protect their constituents' best interests, instead selling them all down the sub-prime river. So it isn’t as if the citizens who have lost their homes lost them by committing willful sub-prime suicide.  The citizens’ representatives on Council were aware of the danger - but failed to put up a fence to keep their taxpayering clients from jumping over the edge.

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