Blog

Oct 15, 2024

Daugherty Township residents make their own bridge to Long Branch Saloon

Editor's Note: This story was updated May 13, 2016, to correct a last name. The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side. Regulars of Long Branch Saloon cross to get chicken wings. But what

Editor's Note: This story was updated May 13, 2016, to correct a last name.

The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side.

Regulars of Long Branch Saloon cross to get chicken wings.

But what if the road’s closed?

Where there’s a wing, there’s a way -- or so the saying goes.

Norman “Bud” Rombold lives on Harmony Road, a few houses upstream of the bar and grill on Blockhouse Run Road in Daugherty Township. His friend, Greg Debo, lives on Silver Spring Lane about a mile away.

Nothing -- not even a babbling brook sans bridge -- keeps them and their friends from their favorite watering hole at the intersection of Blockhouse Run and Harmony roads.

About two weeks ago, Blockhouse Run between Harmony and 30th Street closed to allow PennDOT to replace a bridge.

The $1.6 million project, expected to last through late June, forces drivers traveling west of the bridge to detour from Blockhouse Run until it becomes Harmony, and then turn right onto Allegheny Street and follow it to Ninth Street. Motorists then turn onto Route 18, Route 65 and Wises Grove Road, at which point Wises Grove intersects with Blockhouse Run. The detour for drivers east of the bridge is the same, except in reverse.

For most living in the neighborhood, getting to Long Branch Saloon takes more than wings and a prayer.

“Took me 12 minutes to get out around to here,” Debo said. “I don’t know how many miles.”

Normally, it takes two minutes.

“Pretty tough,” he said.

With a little ingenuity, enterprise and backbone, Debo, Rombold, his grandson, Devin Flaherty, and Matt Matko came up with a solution: build a pedestrian bridge across the stream. The makeshift bridge, about a hundred yards or more from the construction site, connects private property owned by the saloon and Rombold’s daughter, Heather Rombold. Both property owners gave consent.

“He had some wood to put across,” said Debo, owner of Debo & Son Excavating and Contracting in New Brighton, referring to Rombold. “I said I got this aluminum pick I can drop off. I said it’d be a lot safer to walk on.”

A 24-foot, aluminum scaffold plank about two-feet wide spans the creek that meanders about 4 feet below.

“It’s anchored on the other side,” Rombold said. “We got tie wire holding it so it don’t slide down.”

He and his grandson unearthed a few big stones from the creek bed to fashion steps -- about six -- up a steep bank to the saloon’s rear parking lot. For added safety, they outlined the edges of the rocks with bright magenta paint.

Solar lights illuminate entrances to the bridge. Thick, nylon, anchor rope serves as a steadying handrail.

The pedestrian walkway, Debo said, is “handy for the people out here that come here to go to dinner on Thursday nights,” especially those who come for 45-cent wing specials.

“They’re good,” Rombold said. “I don’t care how busy they are, never got a bad wing.”

“We put a pile of tables together and a bunch of families get together on Thursday,” Debo said. “You can get one of each, two of each, six of each -- you can get whatever kind you want. You don’t have to get six or 12. You can get what you want.”

Rombold said Long Branch customers park in his daughter’s and her neighbors’ driveways, cut across her lawn and traverse the bridge to the saloon.

“Last week, there was three young girls that parked over here off the road and they walked across it,” Rombold said. “Saved them some time.”

Debo said friends are “glad” for their bridge-building efforts.

So is Lisa Houy, a co-owner of Long Branch Saloon.

“I think it’s great. It shows they’re willing to go out of their way” to support her business, she said. “I think it’s really cool.”

Even she’s walked across the bridge to get to work when she doesn’t have a carload of supplies to drop off.

So far, nobody has fallen in the creek, even after a few beers.

“It’s not that bad,” Debo said. “We don’t get that plastered.”