After the Great Brook flooded in July and devastated Plainfield, construction crews plucked the remains of the Mill Street Bridge from the water and deposited them on its banks.
The heap of concrete and rusted steel is a twisted mess, but to some residents, it’s also a potent symbol of Plainfield’s ordeal. The July 10 deluge destroyed homes and knocked the old bridge off its abutments. It also washed away a brookside apartment building called the Heartbreak Hotel.
About half a dozen people who live in or near the village want to save the rubble for use as an art installation once the town has made progress in its recovery. Jesse Cooper, a Plainfielder who is storing the rubble at his metal and wood fabrication shop in Montpelier, said it will take a long time to process the feelings associated with the crushed remains — and to sort through ideas of what to make with them.
“This could speak to the fact that it’s a traumatic thing. It could speak to the fact that this brook may flood again,” Cooper said recently as he surveyed the pile of rubble. He emphasized that reimagining the debris is a group project. “I’m a totally informal participant in this.”
The Mill Street bridge was built in 1929, two years after the Great Flood destroyed homes, businesses and 1,285 bridges in Vermont; more than 80 people died. The ruins include a slab of concrete emblazoned with the date.
A new green space will be created in Plainfield once flooded homes are removed, and that’s part of the story, too, Cooper said. So is the construction equipment that arrived after the flood.
“There’s a lot of photos of that,” he said. The artwork, he added, will probably explore a question: “OK, how did we end up here?”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Art Therapy”
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This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2024.
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