By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
For years, the Townsends Inlet Bridge has been used by artists as a gigantic canvas of sorts for their work.
But these are hardly modern day da Vincis, Rembrandts or Monets. They are graffiti artists whose crude etchings marred the appearance of the massive concrete piers that support the bridge linking Sea Isle City and Avalon.
Cape May County has taken the first step to temporarily get rid of the graffiti by covering it up with white paint. County Engineer Bob Church said Monday he understands that the piers will be power washed at some point all the way down to the bridge’s original concrete to permanently remove the graffiti.
The way it is built, the Townsends Inlet Bridge hovers over the beach in the southern tip of Sea Isle, making it an easy target for graffiti artists who simply walk out to the piers and unleash their spray paint.
Before the coat of white paint was applied to cover the graffiti, the bridge was filled with romantic scribblings professing eternal love between “JM + TJ” and others who had scrawled their initials on the piers.
One of the most noticeable pieces of romantic bridge art had covered a large section of a pier in mural-like fashion: “Fly High K.T,” it had said in big letters accompanied by a heart symbol before it was covered over.
Other pieces of now-gone graffiti appeared to be more creative or artistic. For instance, a three-pointed blue crown had been drawn on one pier anchored in the water.
The most bizarre piece of graffiti included multiple images of a man’s face surrounded by a monkey’s face, a garden gnome and man sitting with his legs crossed amid the words “Don’t follow leaders.”
Townsends Inlet Bridge is one of five toll bridges operated by the Cape May County Bridge Commission along the Ocean Drive from Ocean City to Cape May. Officials from the bridge commission could not be reached Monday for comment about efforts to remove the graffiti.
Lewis Donofrio, the bridge commission’s chief engineer, explained last year during one of the agency’s monthly board meetings that Townsends Inlet probably has the worst graffiti problem of all five bridges operated by the agency.
He also said then there is “no formal anti-graffiti policy at this time,” so the bridge commission depends on the county’s Public Works crews to periodically clean off the piers, but more of it follows later on.
Donofrio also indicated last year that he planned to reach out to the Sea Isle Police Department to discuss ways of preventing the graffiti artists from coming back – perhaps with more foot patrols on the beach under the bridge during the busy summer tourism season.
