I've been hearing about the "Love-Locks" on the Pont des Arts for a long time. My pattern of only passing through Paris to get home or back to the states, didn't offer me a chance to get over to the Pont to take a look. Most of the photos I'd seen focused on a grouping of locks. The idea is that couples buy a padlock, make their mark, lock it to the Pont des Arts and then throw the key into the Seine; to symbolize their undying, forever love.
The Pont des Arts is a sweet, wooden foot bridge across the Seine, almost half-way down the Louvre. As I got closer, crowds of artists, photographers, and couples picked up. The view was shocking. Every inch of the grating on this bridge is full of these "love-locks". I'm not sure what the first people thought when they started what has now become a destructive fad. We have a bad habit of not thinking ahead to what the long term ramifications of our behavior could be, but who'd have expected this? These sweet, little, love locks, have become a huge, destructive, expensive problem for Paris. Suggestions have been made for alternatives to tourists. Some have suggested enforcing defacing public property laws. I don't know what the answer is.
What I do know is that this beautiful, romantic bridge is crumbling under the weight. There are so many love-locks on the Pont des Arts that "lovers" have moved on to attach their symbols of undying love to other bridges. Where bridge panels have crumbled, they've been replaced with plywood. And what about the keys? Two police boats were in the Seine that day. I watched police with nets scooping keys out of the Seine. Imagine that many keys lying at the bottom of the Seine. What does that do to the water quality and life of the river? Questions, questions and more questions.
The view of the Isles de Cite and St. Louis are forever altered from the Pont. You can now buy "love-locks" on the bridge itself, reaching the height of commercialization. This does not bode well for the prevention of future locking.
I hope a solution is found before the whole bridge is covered in plywood and the same process begins for other bridges across the Seine in Paris. Not to be accused of pessimism, but I would love to know how many of these "undying, forever loves" have lasted. Maybe everyone who has attached a lock to the Pont des Arts and thrown their key into the Seine (and only you know who you are), could make their way back to Paris together and as a symbol of undying love for the City of Light, cut your padlock from the bridge and take it home with you. Hang it on your Holiday Tree. Or, instead of engagement rings and such, send a rather large donation to the City of Paris to pay for key retrieval, bridge repair and maintenance. I wonder, might there eventually be a charge to even cross the bridge that could be used in the same way? It's one thing to deal with what is already there, but how do we prevent more of this in the future? Only time will tell.
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