PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- They put up the barricades late Friday night, but before the reconstruction project begins, there was a goodbye party for a piece of Pittsburgh history.

The old Greenfield Bridge closed to motorists for good this weekend.

And, Saturday evening, before the work gets underway, they held the "Rock Away the Blues Bridgefest" to celebrate the bridge's history and to say a final goodbye.

There was fun, food, music and lots of memories to share about the old bridge.

"I walk my dogs pretty much every day over here," Debbie Malesic, of Greenfield, said. "We took our last walk and it was pretty sad."

"Walking my daughter when she was a little one, walking her in the stroller, go through the park, walking up to the ice skating rink," said Donna Siviy, another Greenfield resident.

"My mother-in-law was raised right around the corner," says Guy Costa, the city's chief operations officer. "She was a little kid when this bridge was born. This bridge was very vital, they didn't have cars."

Now, if you think that celebrating the destruction of a bridge that will cause some economic hardship for two years is a little strange, imagine looking at it from a foreign perspective.

"We don't celebrate, it's something very unique for me," said Furuan Kahn, a native of Pakistan. "We are celebrating the demolishing of a bridge. Pretty crazy, yeah, that's what I was about to say."

Crazy sure, but it's Greenfield, and come Monday, with no bridge, that's when the real crazy will begin as drivers begin to deal with traffic headaches.

The Greenfield Bridge was recently featured in a "60 Minutes" story about the deteriorating condition of bridges in our country. But 19 months from now, it will be the newest bridge in the country.

"We know it's going to be an inconvenience. But it's a 93-year-old bridge. It needs to come down," says Costa. "It's just another example of the failing infrastructure that we have in Western Pa."

For the 15,000 motorists who travel the span every day, detours will take them way out of their way. And the Parkway East, which sits below the bridge, will have major disruptions, too.

The drivers say it's more than an inconvenience. The city's recommending several detours, but we won't know how bad it'll be until Monday's rush hour.

"Probably going to put a good half hour on me every day, each way," said one driver.

"It's going to be terrible, traffic everywhere, roads will be all backed up," said another.

But officials say the reconstruction project is necessary.

Chunks of concrete from the bridge would break off and land on the Parkway below. They put up netting to catch the debris. Then, they built a second bridge just to hold the chunks.

"In the end, we're going to have a beautiful bridge here," said one motorist.

But not before there's 19 months of detours between Greenfield and Schenley Park.

And that's not all. During the five days between Christmas and New Year's, they're going to have to shut the Parkway down while they implode the bridge.

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