Locks being removed from Pittsburgh's Clemente Bridge on way to becoming art

This show of love couldn’t last.

One by one, with the help of bolt cutters and electronic saws, construction workers began removing love locks from Pittsburgh’s Clemente Bridge on Wednesday morning.

Then they unceremoniously threw the locks into buckets.

Over the years, couples have attached thousands of locks to the Allegheny County-owned bridge between Downtown and the North Shore in a tradition meant to symbolize their love.

The locks will find new life this summer as students at the Industrial Arts Workshop in Hazelwood incorporate them into a project. One of the challenges, said workshop executive director Tim Kaulen, will be to recapture the original stories behind the locks within the new piece.

“(The goal is) to tell a new story and also represent the original story and try to represent the hopes and dreams of all the folks who put their time and energy to attach locks to the bridge,” Kaulen said. “I take the responsibility to try to incorporate that into a new sculpture.”

Standing in a heavy, late-winter snow, Kaulen held some of the locks already removed, noting that some looked like they could have been decades old.

Kaulen’s workshops and camps for high school-age children include an element of workforce development, as he tries to turn the kids on to different trades. He said the kids in this year’s summer camp will determine what the locks turn into.

“From start to finish, our high school kids conceptualize the results as well as participate in the design of the project,” he said. “I don’t have an objective or identity for a new shape. I leave that up to the smart and talented energy of our young people.”

The camp will begin as soon as school lets out for the summer, though there is no real timeline for the project, Kaulen said.

Allegheny County Public Works Director Stephen Shanley estimates there were about 11,000 locks on the Clemente Bridge. Most were on the downriver side of the bridge facing PNC Park. Mosites Construction crews began by removing locks from the upriver side, which faces the other two sister bridges: the Andy Warhol Bridge and the Rachel Carson Bridge.

“We’re excited to see what he comes up with,” Shanley said of Kaulen’s project. “These locks were put out here with a lot of love, so it’s nice that they’re able to be repurposed.”

The bridge, named for Pirates legend Roberto Clemente, offers striking views of PNC Park and is closed to motorists on game days, becoming a busy pedestrian bridge between Downtown and the North Shore.

The bridge shut down to all traffic on Feb. 14 and will remain closed through the end of next year as crews make repairs to the 884-foot span and repaint it.

“There’s a story with the structure and there’s a story for each one of the locks,” Shanley said.