“Key Bridge is gone!” my wife said.

She looked at her phone as we lay in bed in the early hours Tuesday. Across Baltimore others were waking up the same way, incredulous. It was not just the dimensions of the collapse, though that was bad enough. To many residents of the Queen City of the Patapsco River, it was also the particular landmark involved.

Baltimore loves its historical artifacts, and Key Bridge was – is – one. You saw it all the time from neighborhoods all over. Arched and boxed in steel, the main span was not so much beautiful as confident. It looked like a bridge that knew its business and didn’t want any fuss. Its ethos was blue-collar, like the city.

Perhaps it is sadly fitting that the fatal casualties of the bridge collapse were construction workers just doing their job, filling potholes on the roadbed.

Besides its place in the landscape, the bridge is famous for its connection to Francis Scott Key, author of the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” (Local traffic reporters sometimes called it the “car-strangled spanner.”)

Rebuilding the bridge will be neither quick, easy, nor cheap. But Baltimore, for all its many real problems, is a city that keeps grinding ahead.

“Key Bridge is gone!” my wife said.

She looked at her phone as we lay in bed in the early hours Tuesday. Across Baltimore, others were waking up the same way, incredulous. It was not just the dimensions of the collapse, though that was bad enough. To many residents of the Queen City of the Patapsco River, it was also the particular landmark involved.

Baltimore loves its historical artifacts, and the Key Bridge was – is – one.

You saw it all the time from neighborhoods all over. You’d drive around City College in the northeast stretches of the city, and there it was, glimmering in the distance. You’d park at Johns Hopkins across town, and suddenly it was right there. You’d walk down to the sea wall at Fort McHenry, and it was close enough to count vehicles crossing.

Arched and boxed in steel, the main span was not so much beautiful as confident. It looked like a bridge that knew its business and didn’t want any fuss. Its ethos was blue-collar, like the city. Perhaps it is sadly fitting that the fatal casualties of the bridge collapse were construction workers just doing their job, filling potholes on the roadbed.

Key Bridge was not the crossing you used if you were driving through from Virginia on your way to New York. It was on the side of the Baltimore beltway where container ships dock and semitrailers rumble up to deliver to warehouses.