Photo: Peter Hartlaub / The Chronicle

In the beginning, no one wanted to claim the BART pedestrian walkway.

It was built as an afterthought in 1973, a last-minute fix after officials realized there was a literal moat between the futuristic new BART station and the Oakland Coliseum complex. Three agencies argued over who would pay for the bridge, and none cared about aesthetics. Even brand new, it looked like the design of an architect who specializes in state penitentiaries.

But then a very Oakland thing happened. Like the Coliseum itself and more than a few (pre-Steve Kerr) Golden State Warriors teams, something that was objectively unlovable became the thing we love the most.

There have been many thoughtful and melancholy tributes to Oracle Arena, as the Warriors return to San Francisco next season. I’ll miss watching basketball in that building. But I think I’ll miss the BART pedestrian walkway experience even more.

If you rely on the sense of sight alone, the walkway looks like something discarded.

Shaped like an exhaust pipe, it doglegs over a stagnant waterway, train tracks and San Leandro Street. Like a maximum security prison exercise yard, the only unimpeded view of the outside world is the sky straight above. The floor is a concrete plank, with industrial fencing on either side — curving inward at the top, presumably to make it impossible to scale, or throw someone to the other side.

But then your other senses kick in. You hear the enthusiasm of the drummers busking for cash, audible when the BART doors swing open. You smell the bacon-wrapped hot dogs. And you feel a mounting excitement, the kind that comes only during a slow walk in a common direction — surrounded by people who are experiencing the same emotion at the same time.

Photo: Peter Hartlaub /

There was an accidental brilliance to the simple and confining design. It’s the sporting equivalent of Disneyland, where the wait is equally important to the actual ride. Head up the escalator, and you’re one of the Pirates of the Coliseum, funneled into a slow walk, then bottlenecked further by the assortment of musicians, hotdog vendors, bootleg T-shirt hustlers and guys selling Bud Light from battered coolers.

As a result, whatever emotion you’re experiencing during this walk of exactly 950 feet — fear, anticipation, the elated triumph of a victory, the stunned silence of defeat — is amplified. You’re forced, by the gerbil-habitat design of the bridge, into a unique bonding experience with thousands of others, all feeling approximately the same thing.

One could theoretically live on the walkway for months, like Tom Hanks in “The Terminal.” It has everything you need: food, water, clothing and constant entertainment.

Police usually hang out on the BART side, chilling, ready for any felonies, while letting most of the victimless crimes happen. For Monday night’s Warriors Game 5 watch party, I counted 11 coolers of beer being sold between our BART train and the metal detectors outside Oracle Arena. It felt like the perfect amount.

My favorite bacon-wrapped hot dog guy is the BART pedestrian walkway bacon-wrapped hot dog guy. Vendors on the walkway move with speed, in the name of profits and convenience. But there’s no tension, wondering whether they’re about to get rousted by overzealous security. It’s all good on the Coliseum bridge.

But the best part of the bridge walk is the fan-to-fan communication. Bunched together like cattle, everyone gets a voice. At Oracle Arena, the Oz-like video screen operator determines when it’s time to “Make Some Noise.” The BART pedestrian bridge is more democratic. The best “Let’s Go, Oakland!” or Walter Hill-inspired “War-eee-ooooors!” chants you’ll hear are outdoors, with your back to the Coliseum, on a night when everything went exactly right for the fans.

We’ve all noticed changes in the Oracle Arena crowd in the last decade, coinciding with the rise of Stephen Curry and the Warriors dynasty. That insanely supportive “We Believe”-era crowd was relegated to the 200s sections, until the upper bowl became a financial strain as well. Beyoncé and Jay-Z showed up, an unfathomable concept in the years of Vonteego Cummings and Ike Diogu. Fans in the lower bowl walk out early now.

And yet the BART pedestrian bridge vibe remains virtually unchanged. It may be the last corner of the Bay Area with a cash-only economy.

The insolent billionaire Mark Stevenses of the world are parking valet, not using the pedestrian bridge, where what’s left of the Bay Area middle class passes on important and complicated lessons to their children: Don’t flash money on the bridge, but enjoy the company. These strangers are our friends today. Together we will represent our East Bay home.

Pretty soon both the Warriors and Raiders games will be finished in this space, and perhaps the Oakland A’s after that. Our best-case scenario may be a Cow Palace-ification of Oracle Arena. Maybe we’ll see those coolers and drum kits at Harlem Globetrotters games for another decade or three.

But it all feels fleeting. The Bay Area seems to be going the way of the gondola, not the utilitarian pedestrian bridge. So every walk across that bridge is a gift, from what may be the most underrated landmark in the Bay.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub