I feel that it has become essential to respond to the rash of negative lunacy related to our art project, Golden Gates Bridge Over Troubled Borders, currently at El Museo Cultural.

First and foremost, I and my associates do not make any money from any of these projects, in fact, I pay for them myself. Before I worked my butt off to get a broker's license, I was an architect and construction manager. I was responsible in part for the reconstruction of Grand Central Station, The Condé Nast penthouse, Newark Airport Terminal C and and a long list of other projects, public and private, throughout the country. I was also the company architect and construction manager for the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. I am intimately familiar with building codes and their implementation.

The Golden Gates Bridge is a superpoly and steel structure that meets the strictest standards and guidelines for this type of structure.

In post-9/11 New York, I and my associates did the Art Rises From the Ashes memorial adjacent to the World Trade Center site, which opened on Sept. 11, 2002 — without permits, without permission and amid an avalanche of threats and outrage from government and nonprofit officials.

The exhibition at Ground Zero helped more than 650,000 people in New York by supplying a traumatized public with a safe place to grieve, pray, express their disenchantment and make direct contact with the actual World Trade Center debris. Since 2002, that exhibition has traveled to other cities and the art (which is not for sale as the pieces contain sacred material), are in museum collections all over the world.

We have also done extensive works directly from the wreckage of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina.

I was asked to bring the border tragedy to public-art consiousness early in 2005. After spending a good bit of time in the Tucson, Ariz., borderlands and Mexico, it seemed that the most pragmatic approach was to build a bridge — literally — that served the migrants with water and gave them the opportunity to voice their hopes, dreams and aspirations — all the way to Washington.

The sculpture originally was launched on one of the main migrant trails on private property in Arrivaca, Ariz., and met immediately with immense resistance. We were followed, repeatedly threatened and shot at before the bridge was finally demolished by redneck vigilantes with pickup trucks. Despite the carnage, we persevered, repeatedly resurrecting the bridge, moving it to different locations and taking sections back and forth across the border in order that migrants could sign it or add graffiti. Golden Gates Bridge Over Troubled Borders has been destroyed six times now, including this last time here, July 31, in Santa Fe.

I submit that the people who exercise violence and destruction as the means to express their personal politics have been fueled by a constant stream of anti-human propaganda against Latino people and are unlikely to cease doing so anytime soon. To those of you who spew lies about my ego or unwillingness to "follow the rules," I suggest that you do your homework. This is not about me, and it never has been. I suggest that you go to my Web site, www.neilbernsteinartist.com, and view the recent public-broadcast station special on my work.

The conflict at the Railyard was initiated by a neighbor of El Museo's, who called the state museum board, the Railyard Corp. and state and city officials in a cowardly crusade to kill the project. A state building inspector came July 17 and told us that he had absolutely no problem with the structure and that if we put a couple more straps on the scaffold and were sure to wear our hard hats, we could continue to build.

I apologize to anyone who feels that our work here is inappropriate, ugly or egotistical. My mission is to bring immigration issues forward so that people of all persuasions can meet, talk, grieve and hopefully come to some semblence of reasonable resolve around these tragedies. I invite you to come and see the Bridge, and I welcome your insights, whether they concur with mine or not.

I would also like to mention that El Museo Executive Director Tom Romero really stepped up to the plate when he asked that Golden Gates Bridge Over Troubled Borders be resurrected here in Santa Fe during the peak tourist season. I want to commend him personally for his courage and unrelenting support as he is besieged by letters and e-mails from those in conflict with the project.

Neil Bernstein, artist and architect, is the creator of The Golden Gates Bridge Over Troubled Borders, now on exhibit at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe in the Railyard.