When I first ascended to the peak of the Gateway Arch, I was so scared I could barely breathe. The gentle sway — that rhythmic, almost imperceptible movement — felt anything but gentle in that moment. Standing 630 feet in the air, every slight motion seemed amplified, like the Arch itself was shivering in the wind. I gripped the handrails tightly, not daring to press too close to the narrow windows. I was certain that leaning too far would somehow tip the whole structure forward, sending me tumbling into the city below.
The first time I visited the Arch, I was a child. Back then, it seemed impossible — a giant silver rainbow stretched across the sky, suspended in midair without any apparent support. I didn’t understand the engineering behind it, only that it seemed to defy logic. From the ground, it felt like magic. From the top, it felt like madness. The tram ride had terrified me then — the strange, white pods clunking upward in slow, uneven jerks. And when I stepped into the viewing area, the sight of those narrow windows — the only thing between me and the sky — sent me scrambling back toward the wall. I couldn’t bring myself to lean forward. I barely looked at the view.
This time, though, I let go. I leaned into the window, pressing my forehead to the glass to see as much as I could. The sway was still there, but this time it felt like breathing — steady and calm, a reminder that this impossible structure was still alive. The views, both east and west, were breathtaking. To the east, the Mississippi twisted away like a coiled ribbon, brown and restless, dividing states and histories. To the west, St. Louis stretched out in neat grids, familiar landmarks scattered across the horizon. The Cathedral Basilica's domes glinted faintly in the sun, and Busch Stadium looked like a toy arena from that height.
But it wasn’t just the view that left me breathless — it was the way the Arch seemed to bind past and present into one seamless image. That morning, I had stood atop Monks Mound at Cahokia, staring across the landscape toward the Arch. From the mound’s summit, the Arch seemed distant and faint, a slender gleam just above the trees. Standing now at the top of the Arch and looking back toward Monks Mound — that great earthen pyramid built over a thousand years ago — felt surreal. Two monuments, one ancient and one modern, each watching the other across time and space.
It’s remarkable to think that the Gateway Arch almost never existed at all. When the idea was first proposed in the 1930s, the people of St. Louis weren’t exactly thrilled. Critics saw it as a frivolous waste of money — an enormous, gleaming sculpture in the sky that offered no practical value. The city was still clawing its way out of the Great Depression, and building something as grand — and seemingly purposeless — as the Arch felt absurd to many. Why spend millions on a monument when families were struggling just to get by?
Yet public works projects like the Arch aren’t about practicality in the strictest sense — they’re about vision. They're a declaration that a city is more than just streets and buildings; it’s an idea, a living thing that exists not just in the present, but in the memory of its past and the hope of its future. The Arch was part of a broader effort to revitalize the riverfront, to bring life back to a section of the city that had grown stagnant. It was a risk — one that many feared would end in embarrassment — but ultimately, it gave the city a new identity. Today, it’s impossible to imagine St. Louis without it.
That’s what public works projects do — they change the way a place sees itself. They give a city something to point to, to gather around, to feel proud of. The Arch may have been born out of skepticism, but now it stands as a symbol of St. Louis itself — a testament to both its westward expansion past and its enduring future.
Looking out from that narrow window at the Arch’s peak, I traced the line between Monks Mound and the Arch with my eyes. There’s something powerful in that connection — a reminder that people have always built monuments to their journeys, their triumphs, and their dreams. The ancient builders of Cahokia may not have imagined their mound as an answer to a modern steel structure, but both stand as markers of human ambition — proof that we’ve always reached for something bigger than ourselves.
I lingered at the window longer than I expected, unwilling to pull away from that perspective. Down below, the Mississippi churned on — slow, steady, indifferent. Barges rumbled past, their horns low and mournful. The Arch swayed softly in the breeze, but I felt steady now — steady in the knowledge that impossible ideas aren’t always so impossible after all. Sometimes they just need the right moment — and the right courage — to rise.