the purple people bridge {april 18, 2023}

When visiting Cincinnati, you have to walk across the Purple People Bridge!

It’s a pedestrian-only bridge, affectionately named the Purple People Bridge for its fun purple color. This bridge originally opened in 1872 as the first railroad bridge connecting Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. After being repurposed several times, the City of Newport, KY received $4 million to paint and restore the bridge in 2001, creating the bridge that people know and love today. 

WHY PURPLE?

Southbank Partners, the nonprofit group that is the primary developer of the Newport Southbank Bridge, convened focus groups during the planning for converting the span to a pedestrian walkway over the Ohio River. More than a dozen groups were shown computer-generated images of how the bridge would look painted a variety of colors, including dark purple, green, rust, orange and white. In every group, purple and green were among the top choices.

In stepped Ted Bushelman, a Southbank volunteer and longtime director of communications at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. During the early 1960s, Bushelman worked in television when color TVs were just beginning to appear in homes. At Xavier University, Bushelman studied how people relate to colors, writing his master’s thesis on The Psychology of Color. “Seeing is as much in the brain as it is in the eye…Purple is a good color for public consumption. If you paint a room purple, it can drive you crazy. But it looks good on something like a bridge.”

I love walking across bridges whenever I can. You look forward to see where you’re going and look back to see where you’ve been. Cincinnati is a big city; the Covington/Newport riverfront is residential with many beautiful historic homes lining the Ohio River. The Ohio River is a busy river with fishermen, recreational boats, and tug boats pushing barges to their destinations. To avoid having the Locks of Love all over the bridge, a designated wall has been placed for those who want to memorialize their love for their special person. What is fun, too, is the state line is marked on the bridge. Walkers can stand in two states at once.