Key Bridge Stories

"Echoes From the Key Bridge" is a project by Art of Solidarity and the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI) to document, archive, and reflect on what the collapse of the Key Bridge has meant to our community. From June 2024 to February 2025, Maria Gabriela Aldana, community artist and consultant of the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI), builds relationships with the people most impacted by the collapse of the Key Bridge. Echoes from the Key Bridge are 31 oral history stories of first-hand accounts told by American Port workers, first responders, and their communities. The collapse of the bridge crippled more than “15,000 workers whose lives are tied to that port of Baltimore, along with another 140,000 workers whose jobs have also been affected,” according to the Real News Network’s Chief Editor, Maximillian Alvarez.

Themes include “the importance of partnerships, urgency during crisis, and labor unseen,” addressing the connections between racial and ethnic histories of Baltimore as a Port city that has been drawing people of various backgrounds for generations.

Programming includes a panel discussion a the BMI and lectures at Towson University, Morgan State University, University of Texas, Austin, Latino Provider's Network, Goucher College, and the Baltimore Ethical Society. The project is featured on WYPR, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Fishbowl, the Baltimore Banner, WJZ,WBAL-TV, Baltimore Magazine, and Somos Baltimore Latino.

We honor the invisible and untold stories of workers. This project is dedicated the families of the lives lost on March 26, 2024:

Carlos Daniel Hernández, 24
Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, 35
Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval, 38
Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, 49
Jose Mynor Lopez, 37
Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26


Listen to an interview with AoS' director, oral historian, and community engagement specialist, Maria Gabriela Aldana, on WYPR here. Aldana has sat down with dozens of community members from Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Glen Burnie, and Annapolis to record their stories in English and Spanish. Special thanks to Kap2ure Film Studios for their partnership.

Photo by Maggi Marzolf, BMI Archivist Manager