What’s underneath the Zakim Bridge?

“I wasn’t expecting a bridge this big,” said Bruce Springsteen who helped dedicate it in song in October 2002. Had he known, he said. ” I would’ve brought the whole band.”

Since then, life below the bridge has evolved into an eclectic, mixed landscape of parks and people that is fascinating to explore. There’s a sense of serenity here, despite all the chaos of choking cars, rumbling trains, and cement mixers at the nearby Boston Sand and Gravel.

The headline attraction on the Cambridge North Point Park side is the Lynch Family Skate Park. The $5 million park is directly under the highway, and lit up at night like Fenway Park. It’s free and even has a graffiti musician-in-residence.

“If it rains you can still get a little bit of a skate on. It’s the same with the snow,” says Matthew Portle, a 23-year-old from Somerville who skates here year-round.

Lennix Pabon-Velez, 18, says it’s a home away from home.

“It’s definitely a safe space for beginners and advanced skaters. Overall, it’s a safe community. Everyone looks out for each other, whether they know each other or not. “

Nearby is the discrete ramp where the duck boats still splash into the Charles River. In 2004 after the Red Sox finally broke the Curse, Big Papi Ortiz placed an orange life preserver around his neck and proclaimed, “I can’t swim.”

The route from Cambridge’s North Point section to the TD Garden downtown can be walked without going on a single city street or seeing a single red light.

There’s the stylish, LED lit North Bank Pedestrian Bridge that is a favorite of joggers and unfortunately rapid food delivery mopeds. It connects Cambridge and Charlestown over the MBTA commuter tracks and under the Zakim Bridge. This bridge links North Point Park with Charlestown’s well landscaped Paul Revere Park.

Here, Katie and Joey Stack, ages 6 and 9 of Joplin, Mo., don’t want to leave the padded floor of the playground, long after the sun has set.

Their mother, Sabreena Stack, says they walked all around, mesmerized by the views.

“It was neat. We walked under the giant (Zakim ) bridge, which was kind of cool. We’ve been touring around Boston, and this is one of the better days so far.”

From here, pedestrians heading downtown weave across the Charles River locks on a series of narrow moveable walkways that exit behind the TD Garden. There are signs proclaiming the walkways “pedestrians only” but they are widely ignored.

Fans heading to the Celtics game at the Garden brag about how much money they are saving by not parking downtown.

But others are not so fortunate.

Bob Zagarella sleeps with his wife in the shadow the Zakim Bridge.

The tattoo musician says the Pine Street Inn is trying to help them get housing. They’ve found no shelter for husband and wife so far.

Zagarella says people care for him here. “The guys that work here are pretty cool,” he says. “Somebody will drop by some food every once in a while. A pizza or a couple of cannolis. I have fallen asleep and woken up and it’s just there,” he says.

He can’t hear the roar of Garden crowd but he can hear the trains pulling out of North Station, and the overhead concrete ramps leading to the Zakim keep him dry.

“It’s always noisy, but I don’t even notice that anymore.”

He says he has an appreciation of Zakim’s legacy of bringing people together. He looks skyward past the concrete and smiles. “At least you put a roof over my head temporarily,” he says. “It’s not forgotten. It won’t be.’’

“As I See It,” a weekly photo column by Pulitzer Prize winner Stan Grossfeld, brings the stories of New England to Globe readers.

Stan Grossfeld can be reached at stanley.grossfeld@globe.com.