The Ben Franklin Bridge turns 100. Don’t wait to walk it like I did.

I’ve driven across the Ben Franklin Bridge countless times but until last week I’d never walked across it, and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge once, so I’ve quietly carried that shame with me for years.

When I received a news release about the bridge turning 100 on July 1 and a subsequent anniversary party on July 11 that will close it to vehicles for public use for the first time since Pope Francis’ visit in 2015, I wanted to finally check walking across it off my Philly bucket list before the event.

I was going to go it alone, but I decided to reach out to Mike Williams, spokesperson for the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA), which manages the bridge, and he offered to schedule a walkway tour of it for me with DRPA principal engineer Michael Howard.

I met both men at Fifth and Race Streets at the base of the bridge on the Philly side, but as luck would have it, we showed up on opposite sides of the heavily-trafficked span. We waved at each other across the cars and as I tried to figure out how to Frogger my way over to them, Howard and Williams disappeared.

The men popped up out of a stairwell right next to me, having used the Fifth Street pedestrian tunnel under the bridge.

“This was one of the original things that we incorporated into the bridge because we didn’t want people to try to walk across the traffic — because they would, you know,” Howard said, and I agreed.

Obviously, it was the first place I wanted to check out.

The entire length of the 91-foot-long tunnel was painted with a vibrant Mural Arts Philadelphia work by Brad Carney and Melissa Mandel. Created in 2018, Building Connections through Time shows people using the bridge, the building of it, and images of its early years. There are also paintings of Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin, and other bridges that span the Delaware River.

Finding one of the city’s most secluded murals felt like finding one of those wonderful Philly secrets the city gives sometimes, if you never stop exploring it.

Back on the surface, Howard said that while the bridge has two pedestrian walkways, for operational reasons, only one side is open at a time and it’s usually the south side. The walkway has restricted hours, so be sure to check the signs (currently, it’s open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.).

Howard pointed out the old Wilbur Chocolate factory on Third Street and explained that a part was sliced off to make way for the bridge.

“One of the things that we had to do when we were constructing was kind of take a surgeon’s scalpel to the area because you know with Old City, everything’s tightly packed and we wanted to make sure we took the bare minimum of structures,” he said.

Also under threat when the bridge was built was nearby St. George’s United Methodist Church on Fourth Street. Opened in 1769, it’s the country’s oldest Methodist church in continuous service.

“Luckily, the engineers were able to just adjust the angle of the approach ever so slightly to avoid encountering the building,” Howard said.

I marveled as I looked at the mere 14 feet that still separates St. George’s from Philly’s big Ben. The engineers left just enough room for the Holy Spirit.

As we began our journey across the bridge, Howard said it took about four-and-a-half years to build and it was designed by architect Paul Philippe Cret, who also designed Philly’s Rodin Museum. The bridge was constructed with eight lanes — six for traffic and two for trolleys, as well as two tracks for heavy rail.

But in the time it took to build it, trolleys went out of fashion and buses came in. The trolley tracks sat unused until the 1940s, when they were paved over. A vast, empty space for a never-opened trolley station remains under the Bolt of Lightning sculpture near the base of the bridge.

Another original component lost when the trolley tracks were paved over were four 75-foot-tall pylons — two on either side of the bridge — that were topped with bronze angel statues called Winged Victory.

One of the angel statues is in the lobby of DRPA’s headquarters and three are in storage, but one will be displayed at the upcoming 100th anniversary celebration, according to Williams.

Shortly after we began our trek on the 1.3-mile walkway, I felt a PATCO train speeding beneath my feet and the bridge move ever so slightly.

“The bridge is dynamic, almost like a living beast because the steel expands when it gets warm out and with traffic, it bounces,” Howard said.

I got used to the sensations within minutes. That being said, I’m not afraid of heights. It could be unnerving if you are.

It took $36 million and 1,300 people to build the 376-foot-tall bridge that extends an additional 100 feet or so below the river, Howard said. Guys known as “sand hogs” worked in submerged watertight structures called caissons where temps sweltered into the 90s, even in winter, to dig down to the bedrock of the Delaware River.

Fifteen workers died in the construction of the bridge. We passed a circular plaque in their memory as we walked. I wondered who they were, how they died, and how they lived.

“Unfortunately, the rule of thumb at the time was for every million dollars you’re spending, you expect to lose a life ... so by that rationale you could have had 36 fatalities.” Howard said. “Nowadays, you know, one injury is unacceptable.”

Our pace was a steady stroll, so we were often passed by runners, walkers, and cyclists. Some appeared to be having a good time, and others looked like they were going through tough times. Some talked to themselves and some stopped to take photos. It was a microcosm of Philly and Camden, suspended high above the river.

Howard said when the bridge was built, its chief engineer believed the walkways wouldn’t be used “in an increasingly or completely motorized age.”

“But you see today the amount of people that are using this walkway and it’s one of the unique elements of this bridge,” he said.

I looked ahead to Camden and then back to Philly. I was so grateful for this walkway and this view. I couldn’t imagine not having it and I couldn’t believe it took me so long to see the city from this new perspective.

The only thing I found worrisome and the thing that kept all three of us looking over our shoulders, were the e-bike and e-scooter riders we didn’t always hear zooming behind us. Skateboards and rollerblades aren’t allowed, but certain classes of e-bikes and e-scooters are. Gas-powered vehicles are also prohibited on the walkway, but a guy on a dirt bike definitely zoomed by at one point.

In the bridge’s early days, horses and carriages were allowed on the main span alongside cars, according to Howard, but their slow pace proved dangerous and their excrement, troublesome, so they were banned in the 1940s.

We stopped at one of the Philadelphia anchorages, the massive concrete-and-granite structures where the bridge’s cables are anchored.

These structures were made to house elevators for the trolleys. Alas, the anchorages are off-limits spaces, but Howard told me that each of the four have the same seven artistic tiles inside commemorating milestones in transportation, from one of a Conestoga wagon to one of the USS Shenandoah, the ill-fated dirigible that crashed before the bridge even opened.

The Ben Franklin Bridge was the longest suspension span in the world, with a distance of 1,750 feet between the two towers, when it opened on July 1, 1926.

In a front-page Inquirer report, journalist Richard J. Beamish noted 250,000 people crossed the bridge on foot opening day and that the structure was “beautiful as gossamer web and seemingly as frail.”

Howard, who quoted that report to me, then asked: “When do you think our first accident was?”

I guessed July 2, 1926. I guessed wrong.

“It was the day it opened,” he said. “People were jockeying to be one of the first to cross the bridge, and over in Camden, you had a fender bender.”

Back then, the span also had a different name — the Delaware River Bridge. It was rechristened in 1956 to avoid confusion when the Walt Whitman Bridge was also built over the Delaware River.

The Ben Franklin Bridge wasn’t always blue, either. It was originally gray and was repainted to its current color just ahead of the Bicentennial, Howard said.

As we stood talking, a man jogging by in Rocky Run T-shirt asked if we’d take a photo of him with the Philly skyline.

Jim Bach of Voorhees works in Camden and likes to run the bridge during his lunch break.

“It’s fantastic. I mean the views that you get when you’re up here, it’s just calm and serene,” he said.

I too felt serene. It was quiet and peaceful on the bridge and being atop it helped me see the city I love in a new way.

Howard also helped me to see something else — the Betsy Ross, Walt Whitman, and Commodore Barry Bridges are all visible from the top of the Ben Franklin.

“All bridges essentially become monuments to the area,” he said. This was most true of the one we were standing on.

We talked about the Ben Franklin’s many appearances in television and movies, from Blow Out to 12 Monkeys.

“Last year they kept coming back from commercial breaks during Monday Night Football and they showed one of three things — the Liberty Bell, someone making cheesesteaks, or the bridge,” Howard said.

In its 100 years, the bridge has become a visual touchstone for the region. You see it and you know you’re in Philly, whether you’re watching a movie or coming back from a road trip. It’s given Philly its sense of place as much as the LOVE sculpture or Independence Hall.

When we got to Camden, we walked through the pedestrian tunnel on that end, too. It doesn’t have a mural, but the exterior is decorated with a bright mosaic of birds and animals created by Camden schoolchildren in the early 2000s.

On our return walk, I asked Howard if he had a moment on the bridge that’s stuck with him. He said a few years ago, while he was leading a tour, there was a commotion on the Philly side. A kitten found its way onto the bridge and police were called. The feline then crawled into the engine compartment of a police cruiser, which had to be taken apart to get it freed.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, so I gotta go adopt it,’” Howard said.

And so he did, and he named the furry little girl Beanie.

I thought of a poignant moment I had once on the bridge. I was a passenger in a vehicle years ago, when I looked over and saw that the car I was in was traveling at relatively the same speed as the PATCO train next to us.

I locked eyes with a woman on the train, who looked a lot like me. We smiled at each other and I waved and she waved back. It’s a brief moment that’s always stuck with me. Maybe it’s because I felt like I could have been her in another life, or she could have been me.

Walking the bridge and hearing its stories, I realized that it connects so much more than just Camden and Philly. It connects all of us to each other — in big and small ways — and it connects our future with our history.

Today, I have a new story about the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the day I walked across it. If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to walk it, too, and make a new memory with one of Philadelphia’s great old structures.

The anniversary celebration for the Ben Franklin Bridge will take place from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. July 11. Details can be found at drpa.org/bfb100/.