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The Long Bien Bridge Project

Built in 1903 by French architect Gustave Eiffel, Long Bien Bridge in Hanoi is one of Vietnam’s most treasured landmarks. Today it stands, spanning the Red River, like a crippled veteran, weighed down and crumbling beneath its own embattled history. A microcosm of the capital, a world unto itself, it hides under its pillars many of the city’s homeless, drug addicts, poor farmers and families simply trying to make ends meet. Once sung about and lauded by national poets, Long Bien Bridge is now suffering from the effects of heavy pollution as factories dump waste into the nearby Red River and companies leave trash beneath the pilings or strewn upon the water’s banks. The once-fertile farmlands beneath are drying up, suffering from too many years of neglect, with local farmers finding it harder and harder to nurture the soil, to pull another harvest from the land. © AARON JOEL SANTOS

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