By Brian Tochterman, Assistant Professor of Sustainable Community Development

Across the banner of The Metropole as I write spans the George Washington Bridge, the majestic and modern steel link between the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan and the city of Fort Lee, New Jersey, although those that cross it typically seek points far beyond those two ends. The “GWB” serves as the mise-en-scene for the opening scene of Mickey Spillane’s cold war novel One Lonely Night (1951), a place where his protagonist alter-ego Mike Hammer seeks solace from a “soft little judge” who has spurned him Downtown. As Hammer narrates,

Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy, yellow lights off in the distance.

The grand suspension bridge, then, becomes the setting for Spillane’s hard-boiled suspense. Hammer stands there considering a choice: his work as a New York City private investigator/vigilante or a move to the emergent suburbs somewhere on the other side of the bridge, perhaps with his loyal secretary Velda, “to start up in real estate in some small community where murder and guns and dames didn’t happen.” When a murder-suicide tied to a communist conspiracy within the city effectively falls at Hammer’s feet, the choice is easy. To read the full article.