In mid-20th-century Cleveland, Ohio, a plan to widen one of the city’s most significant bridges nearly erased its most iconic landmarks. At stake were the Guardians of Traffic — towering Art Deco sculptures lining the Hope Memorial Bridge, which spans the Cuyahoga River and physically links Cleveland’s East and West sides.

In the 1960s, Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert S. Porter proposed removing the statues to make room for more automobile lanes. Porter, a dominant force in Northeast Ohio infrastructure planning from 1947 to 1976, dismissed the sculptures as outdated ornamentation — “just a bunch of old stone men with helmets,” he scoffed. His priorities were clear: function over form. “Beauty doesn’t reduce traffic jams,” he argued.