Rheinpark

This guide to Rheinpark in Cologne follows the cable car swaying above the river, built in nineteen fifty-seven for West Germany's national garden exhibition and never meant to last past that one season. It explains the engineering puzzle behind stringing a gondola line across nine hundred and thirty-five meters of open water with no support in the middle, and follows the ride through a nineteen sixty-three teardown for a new road bridge. Look up at the cable overhead and imagine deciding whether to rebuild it.