A single sentence in the Black Rock Forest Newsletter got our attention. “Coyote Bridge,” it began, “was built by sixth-graders from the Metropolitan Montessori School.”
We looked for the school on the Internet and learned that the name “Metropolitan” was not a misnomer. The school is on 85th Street in Manhattan. Imagine those kids leaving the city and working on a project deep in the woods!
And we learned that Coyote Bridge is deep in the woods. Forest Manager Matt Brady took us to see the bridge on Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 12. “It’s a 15 minute ride,” he said as we met at the lodge.
You can do the arithmetic. Even at 10 miles an hour (a speed that’s often necessary on the narrow dirt roads in the forest), you can cover two-and-a-half miles in 15 minutes — putting you a sizeable distance from civilization.
We eventually stopped on the side of the road and walked into the wilderness to see the kids’ handiwork. The bridge is supported by two thick poles that are long enough to stretch from one side of the creek to the other.
Mr. Brady said the poles were fashioned from trees that had come down in the forest. The kids, with help from the faculty and forest staff, used a pulley to lower the poles into position. The youngsters then hammered planks over the poles to complete the bridge, which connects a pair of unmarked trails.
“Lots of groups use the forest. Some of them will ask, ‘What can we do for you?’”
That explains the origin of Coyote Bridge. The school was looking for a way to be helpful, while giving its students a new experience. Mr. Brady said it seemed like some of the young workers were using a hammer for the first time — although one girl was very proficient.
But we were curious about the name. That’s, really, what caught our eye when we read the newsletter. The story is that soon after the bridge was built, a coyote crossed it and left its droppings. The creature may have started a tradition, because there were coyote droppings on the bridge when we came to see it a few months later.
