A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene

Continuing my extremely casual exploration (see also “What is Flower?”) into what people are really reaching for when they reach for a reference to “poetry,” I came across an article about the Queensboro Bridge in yesterday’s New York Times. The piece is mostly about how said bridge turns 100 today, but in it, architectural historian Barry Lewis says, “Who lives in Queens? You’re going to have your newsstand guy, your doorman, the guy who runs the store around the corner, they all live in Queens. The people who live in Queens are really the people who make the city run in a basic, gritty way, and the bridge is exactly that. It’s not a bridge that you write poetry to.”

What is Mr. Lewis getting at here—do unassuming things not inspire poetry? Do “basic” and “gritty” people not read or write poetry? Is poetry not “gritty”? Also, Ploughshares blog readers, are there any poems out there that have been written to the Queensboro? Does all the ink get spilled on the Brooklyn Bridge instead? What are your favorite bridges and bridge poems? Or, since F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the Queensboro Bridge ("The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.") what are your fave writings on bridges generally?