Crosses: Harlem River
Connects: Third Avenue between Mott Haven, the Bronx and Harlem [satellite map]
Carries: 5 Manahattan-bound vehicular lanes, 2 pedestrian sidewalks
Design: swing bridge
Date opened: 2004

The Third Avenue Bridge is a swing bridge over the Harlem River, connecting Third Avenue in Manhattan with Third Avenue in the Bronx. It is the fourth bridge to stand at that location.

In 1774, Lewis Morris received permission to build a bridge to connect a proposed road through Harlem with a road leading to the Morris family’s estate, Morrisania, and the village of Eastchester (both are now neighborhoods located in the Bronx). Though a ferry had once operated between Manhattan and the Bronx just east of the proposed site of the crossing for a few years in the late 1600s, the only way for people to travel between the two at the time of Morris’ proposal was by either King’s Bridge or Farmer’s Bridge, both of which were located at the far northern tip of Manhattan. Morris’ bridge would cut the traveling distance between his estate and the southern end of Manhattan, the core of the city at the time, by nearly 12 miles.

Coles Bridge

Nothing was done about the bridge, however, until the end of March 1790, when a refined charter was given to Morris to build a drawbridge at least 12 feet wide to accommodate river traffic. Morris was also given permission to charge tolls on the bridge for a period of 60 years, after which ownership of the bridge would pass on to the state. Such arrangements were common at the time as an enticement for private entities and individuals to invest in public infrastructure.

Also common at the time were delays concerning large projects such as this. Nothing concerning the bridge is mentioned in the city’s legislative archives until March 1795, when Morris sought permission to transfer his charter to a business partner and family friend named John B. Coles. The new charter was approved with a modification allowing Coles to build the bridge on top of a dam in order to a establish a water-powered mill at the site. In early 1797 the Coles Bridge, as it came to be known, a simple wooden structure with a turntable draw span, was opened, though Coles apparently never got around to building a dam underneath it. The route over the bridge, consisting of a newly constructed Middle Road (now roughly Eighth Avenue and Central Park West) in Manhattan and what came to be known as Coles Road (now Third Avenue and Boston Post Road in the Bronx) quickly became more popular than the King’s Bridge or Farmer’s Bridge route, in spite of the fact that Coles had inherited and taken advantage of Morris’ right to charge tolls while the uptown crossings were both free to use.

The Harlem Bridge

On April 1, 1858, in accordance with the original charter’s stipulation and the State Legislature’s Chapter 774 of the Laws of 1857, ownership of Coles Bridge passed from the Coles family to the state government. By that time, the bridge had fallen into such a bad state of repair that nothing could be done to save it, according to the Commissioners of Harlem Bridge, a group consisting of New York and Westchester officials convened specially to oversee the takeover of the bridge by the state. In June 1860, the Commissioners made an official inspection of the bridge in anticipation of a reconstruction project. They found the superstructure in an advanced state of decay and “the piers destroyed by the ravages of the worm” [1] (the worm in question, teredo navalis, is not actually a worm but a mollusk, commonly known as the shipworm or marine borer. It is still a serious problem in the city, with many millions of dollars budgeted for the reconstruction of waterfront piers, highways, and high rise foundations due to its highly efficient method of consuming submerged wooden pilings).

The official decision to rebuild the bridge came soon after, and work began in August 1860. Erastus W. Smith, a New York mechanical engineer with many years of experience running municipal water works and ocean liner systems was named as Chief Engineer of the project. The original plans for the bridge called for a series of simple through truss approach spans with a through truss swing span atop a turntable. Smith decided instead to build the bridge with arched tubular truss spans constructed of wrought iron, giving the bridge a gracefully curved profile in comparison to the original boxy design. The old span was kept in place as the new bridge was built just west of it. The piers for the new bridge consisted of a combination of six foot and eight foot diameter cast iron cylinders, sunk into the river bed by pneumatic force, one of the earliest instances of the use of compressed air for bridge construction in the country. The pier sinking and foundation work were completed by the New York firm of Roach & Edwards. The superstructure of the bridge was constructed by the Trenton Locomotive Machine Manufacturing Company of New Jersey. After 8 years of work, the still incomplete bridge, called the Harlem Bridge, was opened for public use on October 16, 1868. The bridge measured 526 feet long by 52 feet wide, including a 218 foot long swing span that operated under the force of water supplied by a Croton water main. Shortly after it opened, a horse car railroad was established over the bridge by the Harlem Bridge, Morrisania and Fordham Railroad Company. Horses would be used on the bridge until 1891, when they were replaced by a an electric propulsion system with power provided by overhead wires.

The Third Avenue Bridge

The Harlem Bridge did not last long, however. After several years, parts of the bridge began to fall apart. The cast iron piers began to crack and the wheels under the turntable had to be replaced multiple times after breaking into pieces. The water powered engine was found to be too sluggish to keep up with the demands of road and river traffic and had to be replaced with a steam engine. In 1882, jurisdiction over all underwater land surrounding the city passed on to the US Government, which had plans to improve the waterways of the city. in 1890, the government passed the Rivers and Harbors Act which specified, among other changes, that all bridges over the Harlem River be raised in order to provide 24 feet of clearance above high water. The Harlem Bridge only provided 5 feet of clearance over the river. Shortly after, the city’s Department of Public Works, which had jurisdiction over the bridge at the time, brought forth a bill in the state legislature asking for authorization to replace the bridge with one that would comply with the new law. The bill was approved, and authorization came in the form of Chapter 413 of the Laws of 1892.

The Harlem Bridge was closed on June 20, 1894, with traffic diverted to a temporary bridge while the new Third Avenue Bridge, as it would be called, was being built. The new span was constructed as a swing bridge, with a swing span operating under steam power. The span was made with steel provided by the Phoenix Iron Works Company of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The span was 300 feet long and was composed of a large through truss structure with curved upper chords terminating at a sharp apex. It was designed by Thomas C. Clarke, the consulting engineer assigned to the project by the Department of Public Works. It was opened on August 1, 1898 with the blowing of its warning whistle, which was soon joined in by the blowing of whistles from nearby boats, trains and factories. It was the largest and heaviest bridge of its type in the world at the time. The bridge had room for two walkways and a roadway containing two sets of trolley tracks laid down by the Union Railway Company, the successor to the Harlem Bridge, Fordham and Morrisania Railway Company during the construction of the bridge. The tracks would remain in place until 1953 when the Third Avenue Elevated train line was demolished. The tracks were then converted into automobile lanes.

Replacement

The Third Avenue Bridge served the city well until the night of November 7, 1999, when a two alarm fire broke out on the wooden fender surrounding the swing span, closing the bridge for several days. in 2001, the city Department of Transportation, which now has jurisdiction over the bridge, began a $119 million reconstruction of the Third Avenue Bridge as part of a nearly $1 billion program to rehabilitate or replace all of the movable Harlem River Bridges. The new bridge, a swing span like all of its ancestors, was designed to visually mimic as closely as possible the span it replaced, albeit with more modern construction techniques and materials. It carries two sidewalks and five lanes of Manhattan-bound traffic. It opened in 2004.

- – - – - -

References

1864. Commissioners of Harlem Bridge. Reports of the Special Committee on the New Harlem Bridge. New York: Wynkoop, Hallenbeck & Thomas.

1895, December 29. The New Harlem Bridge. The New York Times.

1898, August 2. New Third Avenue Bridge. The New York Times.

1903. New York Department of Bridges. The Department of Bridges of the City of New York: A Statement of Facts. New York: The City Club of New York.

1904. Gay, Martin. Harlem River Bridges. Proceedings of the Municipal Engineers of the City of New York. New York.

1905. New York Department of Bridges. Report of the Commissioner of Bridges to the Hon. George B. McClellan, Mayor of the City of New York, December 31, 1904. New York: Martin B. Brown Co.

1905. Municipal Engineers of the City of New York. Proceedings, 1904. New York.

[1] c1920. New York (City). Historical facts in Connection with New York City Bridges: 1890-1919. New York: City Hall Library.

1999, November 8. Waldman, Amy. Big Fire Closes 3rd Ave. Bridge, Snarling Traffic From the Bronx. The New York Times.

2006, January 14. Chan, Sewell. City Wants to Part With Bridge That Links Bronx and Manhattan. The New York Times.

Crosses: Newtown Creek
Connects: Grand Street, Williamsburg and Grand Avenue, Maspeth [satellite map]
Carries: 2 vehicular lanes, 2 pedestrian sidewalks
Design: swing bridge
Date opened: February 5, 1903

The Grand Street Bridge is a through truss swing bridge across Newtown Creek, connecting Maspeth, Queens with Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Earlier Bridges

In the 1850s Newtown Creek was an incredibly busy and polluted waterway, crowded with ships serving industrial sites like the glue factories, smelting plants, and refineries that lined its shores.

The first bridge to carry Grand Street over Newtown Creek was authorized to be built in 1869, with the cost of construction to be split between the town of Newtown (now a part of present day Queens) and the city of Brooklyn. A contract was awarded in 1874 to the King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and an iron swing bridge was completed at the site the following year. In 1878, the Kings County Board of Supervisors reported that the bridge was already in bad shape; the swing span had become difficult to turn, causing traffic delays to become a commonplace occurrence. By 1881 the bridge had sunk so far into the mud that at high tide the turntable would become partially submerged in the creek. The Joint Committee on Bridges called for its replacement in 1888. A new iron swing bridge with masonry piers opened the following year. Jurisdiction over the bridge was given to the Department of Bridges in 1898 following the consolidation of the five boroughs into the City of New York. In 1899, the US War Department, looking to dredge and widen Newtown Creek, found the bridge to be an obstruction to navigation and ordered yet another bridge to be built on the site.

Current Bridge

On June 11, 1900, Department of Bridges Commissioner John L. Shea advertised for bids on the construction of a new span. On August 7, a contract was awarded to Bernard Rolf for a steel swing bridge at a cost of $173,380. The old bridge was closed on August 27 and a temporary pedestrian bridge made of wood was built. Construction of the new bridge took much longer than initially expected. Labor strikes, poorly made engineering plans, and deliveries of low quality building materials were compounded by problems with the dredging of the creek. The situation improved when prominent bridge engineer Gustav Lindenthal was appointed Bridge Commissioner by Mayor Seth Low in 1902. In November of that year, consulting engineer C.C. Martin was placed in full charge of the project by the Department of Bridges, and construction progressed quickly. The bridge was completed at a cost of $205,672 and opened to traffic on December 12, 1902. The City of New York officially accepted the bridge on February 5, 1903.

Crimes & Accidents

The Grand Street Bridge and the area very close to it on Newtown Creek have been site to numerous crimes and some mysterious drownings. The bridge was left unguarded at night: policemen stationed there left at 8pm and did not return until 4am. In November of 1894 The New York Times detailed a story told to them by George Roeschman, who said he had been approached by three men asking for a match while crossing the bridge one night. When he reached into his pocket, the men grabbed him, put a bag over his head, robbed him of all he had ($10), and tossed him into Newtown Creek. He lived to tell his tale, though his credibility is questionable: the lumber company Roeschman claimed he worked for had no idea who he was. In the same year several other bodies were pulled from the water near the bridge, it being unknown whether they were murdered or drowned. Two men were arrested and sentenced to Sing Sing Prison for taking and burying alive a baby from a Polish woman (of no relation to either) near the bridge.

In January 1896, Polish priest Reverend Leonard Syczek was heard crying out for help from the water by a watchman and two boat captains who happened to be nearby. He was pulled out but died later. It was thought he had fallen in accidentally: the entryways to the bridge were dark at night and it was easy to miss the walkway and fall right into the river. In September of 1927 a Maspeth man drove through the guardrail and off the narrow bridge after colliding with another car. He managed to free himself from his car and was rescued by boat.

Decline

The bridge held up relatively well until the 1950s, when reports of closures became frequent. Between 1952 and 1956 the main shaft on the turntable broke at least three times, each instance requiring a full day’s work for repairs, during which time the bridge was left in the open position to accommodate boat traffic. On June 12, 1975, a proposal was put into place to cut service for bridge openings. Until that time, a tender was employed 24 hours a day on the bridge. The plans were put off for a time, but were eventually put into place. In 2002, the Department of Transportation, who now has jurisdiction over the bridge, proposed turning the bridge into a fixed span, citing the decline of boat traffic that had come to obviate the need for bridge openings. The proposal has yet to be put into place, though bridge openings have become very rare. In 1998 (the most recent year for which data is available), the bridge was opened only 23 times for boat traffic, and another 63 times for testing. Those numbers show a sharp decline from as recent as 1990, when it was opened 610 times for boat traffic, and 42 times for testing.

- – - – - -

References

1885, September 22. The 18th Ward: Its Past and Its Probable Future. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 1.

1894, November 21. Newtown Creek Crimes: George Roeschman’s Story May Throw Light on Them. The New York Times. (ProQuest Document ID: 106880248).

1896, January 26. Drowned in Newtown Creek: Lack of Guards at Grand Street Bridge Responsible for a Life. The New York Times. (ProQuest Document ID: 108219542).

1898, September 18. Channel Narrowed in Newtown Creek. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 5.

1899, January 1. Grand Street Bridge May Be Condemned. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 28.

1900, July 11. The Grand Street Bridge. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 2.

1900, July 23. Grand Street Bridge: Contract for Construction to Go to Bernard Rolf. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 3.

1900, August 27. Work Begun on New Bridge. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 14.

1901, May 8. Grand Street Bridge Delays. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 9.

1903. New York Department of Bridges. The Department of Bridges of the City of New York: A Statement of Facts. New York: The City Club of New York.

1905. New York Department of Bridges. Report of the Commissioner of Bridges to the Hon. George B. McClellan, Mayor of the City of New York, December 31, 1904. New York: Martin B. Brown Co.

1910. Grand Street Swing Bridge. The Engineering Magazine, October 1909 to March 1910.

c1920. New York (City). Historical facts in Connection with New York City Bridges: 1890-1919. New York: City Hall Library.

1927, September 2. Autoist is Unhurt in Drop off Bridge. The New York Times, p. 19. (ProQuest Document ID: 101507495).

1930, May 25. Urges Change in Plan for Newtown Creek. The New York Times, p. 25. (ProQuest Document ID: 97802448).

1952, November 13. Grand Street Bridge Closed. The New York Times, p. 33. (ProQuest Document ID: 84366724).

1956, March 19. Part of Bridge Adrift. The New York Times, p.33. (ProQuest Document ID: 86549396).

1956, May 8. Newtown Creek Span is Stuck. The New York Times, p. 35. (ProQuest Document ID: 86574829).

1975, June 12. Newman, Barry. Ted Kolo Tends the Grand Street Bridge. The Wall Street Journal, p. 20.

2002, February 10. Lippincott, E. E. Sounding a Death Knell for a Long-Forsaken Waterway. The New York Times, p. CY8.

c2010. New York City Department of Transportation. Grand Street Bridge Facts. Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bridges/grandfacts.shtml

Crosses: Pelham Bay
Connects: Pelham Bay Park and City Island, The Bronx [satellite map]
Carries: 2 vehicular lanes, 1 fire lane, 2 pedestrian sidewalks
Design: (former) swing bridge, now fixed
Date opened: July 14, 1901

The City Island Bridge is a fixed bridge (formerly a swing) that connects City Island with Rodman’s Neck in Pelham Bay Park, in the eastern part of the borough of the Bronx.

City Island is a small island, just one and a half miles long by half a mile wide, off the coast of the Bronx mainland in Eastchester Bay. It is known locally as “The Seaport of the Bronx,” and is famous for its resemblance to New England fishing villages. City Island was first settled by the English in the second half of the 17th century after Thomas Pell’s purchase of over 9,000 acres of land from a local Native American tribe known as the Siwanoys. It was originally known as Minnewits or Minefords Island after either Peter Minuit, purchaser of Manhattan, or another local tribe. In 1761, the island was purchased by a businessman named Benjamin Palmer (the builder of Farmer’s Bridge), who hoped to establish the island as a rival city to New York. The American Revolution prevented his plans from coming to fruition, though the name he chose for the settlement, New City Island, stuck, surviving for about a hundred years before being shortened to the current City Island.

Need for a Bridge

On May 10, 1763, the first ferry was established between City Island and Rodman’s Neck. On April 3, 1775, the State Legislature passed an act authorizing Benjamin Palmer and Samuel Rodman, who owned the land closest to the island, to build a “free draw Bridge over the Narrows from Mineford’s Island to Rodman’s Neck” (1894, New York [State], p. 879) within seven years of the passage of the act. It is apparent, however, that no action was taken. Another act was passed in 1804 to allow the construction of a bridge, but the initiative failed due to lack of financial support.

First Crossing

Nothing further was done until April 30, 1864, when the City Island Bridge Company was incorporated to build a toll bridge to City Island. The company failed to build a bridge, however, and the State allowed the town of Pelham, of which City Island was a part of at the time, to acquire the title to the bridge company and permission to charge tolls in 1873. Around the same time, David Carll, a prominent shipbuilder with a large shipyard on City Island, purchased a decommissioned US warship named the North Carolina at a public auction. Carll used wood salvaged from the ship to build a number of smaller boats, and used the leftovers to build the first bridge connecting City Island with the mainland. That bridge (above), was built primarily of wood from the North Carolina, with some ironwork taken from the old Cole’s Bridge, the first bridge to cross the Harlem River. It was was widely reported at the time and for years afterwards (and occasionally even today) that the entire bridge was moved by scows to City Island when it was replaced by the first Third Avenue Bridge, but this appears to be incorrect.

A New Bridge

The town continued to charge tolls on the bridge until 1895, when that part of the Bronx was annexed by New York City. The bridge had become seriously deteriorated by then, with some newspaper accounts telling of residents who had become too afraid to cross it. Plans were already underway for a replacement, however, with the state passing laws in 1894 and 1896 authorizing the construction of a new bridge. Contracts for the construction of the new bridge were signed by Mayor William Strong in 1897, reportedly two hours before the end of his term of office. Construction on the new bridge began on January 19, 1899.

The City Island Bridge was built as a swing bridge with a 180-foot-long swing span and five 80-foot-long fixed approach spans. The structure was built atop six masonry piers sunk 40 feet below the surface of the water to rock, and faced mostly with blue gray limestone. The pier sinking and structure construction were performed by the John F. O’Rourke contracting company of New York. The swing span is of a through truss design, with a rectangular central tower topped with ornamental finials and concave chords on each side supporting the deck. It was completed in 1901 at a cost of $250,000. The bridge was informally opened to pedestrians by Deputy Commissioner of Bridges Matthew Moore on July 4, 1901 as a favor to City Island residents looking to celebrate the nation’s 225th Independence Day, fifty of whom attended the opening. Two weeks later, on July 14, a bridge watchman named Sprout officially opened the bridge to horse carriage traffic by cutting away the old manila ropes that had hung across each end of the roadway.

Monorail

In 1910 a monorail line, the first in the western hemisphere, was established by the City Island Monorail Company between the Bartow Station of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad and a station at the eastern approach to the City Island Bridge, with plans to build an extension over the bridge to a station on the island itself. The line was a failure, however, and the system was dismantled on March 16, 1914 to make way for a standard two-rail trolley line.

Repairs and Plans for Replacement

By the 1970′s, like so many other New York City bridges, the City Island Bridge began to show its age. Divers for the city inspecting the bridge’s substructure found cracks and faults in the limestone piers supporting the bridge. A major rehabilitation project began in 1977, extending the life of the bridge by several decades.

The bridge has continued to deteriorate since then, however, and the city now plans to replace it entirely. The new bridge will be of a cable-stayed design, with a 150-foot concrete tower supporting the bridge deck via a system of suspension cables. The Department of Transportation has compared the new design to the mast of a sailboat, fitting the island’s image of a nautical town. Some City Island residents disagree; one member of the City Island Historical Society called the design “a monstrosity” (2008, Bindley). Work was originally set to begin in 2006, but has been pushed back to 2011 due to budgetary concerns.

- – - – - -

References

1864. New York (State). Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York at Their Eighty-Seventh Session. Albany: Comstock & Cassidy.

1873. New York (State). Journal of the Senate of the State of New York at Their Ninety-Sixth Session. Albany: The Argus Company.

1889. Appletons Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1888 13: 626. New York: D. Appleton and Company.

1894. New York (State). The Colonial Laws of New York From the Year 1664 to the Revolution. Volume 5. Albany: James B. Lyon.

1899, January 20. The New City Island Bridge. The New York Times.

1899, March 11. Unsatisfactory Contract. Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

1899, May 27. Harlem and the Bronx. Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

1901, July 1. To Open Two New Bridges. The New York Times.

1901, July 5. City Island Bridge Opened. The New York Times.

1901, July 15. New City Island Bridge Open. The New York Times.

1901, December 12. Harlem and the Bronx. Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

1904. Gay, Martin. Harlem River Bridges. Proceedings of the Municipal Engineers of the City of New York. New York.

1905. New York Department of Bridges. Report of the Commissioner of Bridges to the Hon. George B. McClellan, Mayor of the City of New York, December 31, 1904. New York: Martin B. Brown Co.

1910, October 3. Monorail to Resume Oct. 5. The New York Times.

1911. Wilcox, Delos F. Municipal Franchises: A Description of the Terms and Conditions upon which Private Corporations enjoy Special Privileges in the Streets of American Cities. Volume 2. New York: Engineering News Publishing Company.

1912. Jenkins, Stephen. The Story of the Bronx. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

1920. Gillette, Halbert P. Handbook of Cost Data for Contractors and Engineers. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

c1920. New York (City). Historical facts in Connection with New York City Bridges: 1890-1919. New York: City Hall Library.

1978, June 18. Bridges in New York are Called Unsound. The New York Times.

2008, November 14. Bindley, Katherine. In the ‘Nantucket of New York,’ a Bridge to Agitation. The New York Times, p. C7.

Crosses: Harlem River
Connects: Washington Heights, Manhattan and Grand Concourse, The Bronx [satellite map]
Carries: 4 vehicular lanes, 2 sidewalks
Design: swing
Date opened: May 1, 1895

Macomb’s Dam bridge crosses the Harlem River, connecting West 155th Street in Manhattan with Jerome Avenue in the Bronx, just west of Yankee Stadium.

The Dam

The story of Macomb’s Dam Bridge dates back to 1813 when Robert Macomb, a local businessman, sought permission from the state legislature to build a dam across the Harlem River near 155th Street in Manhattan. He intended to turn the portion of the river between there and a dam he owned near King’s Bridge on Spuyten Duyvil Creek into a mill pond. The legislature granted permission for the dam on January 10, 1814, with a stipulation that a lock or some other mechanism for naval passage be built into the structure. In late 1813, when it became apparent that Macomb would be given permission to build his dam, a group of fifty prominent citizens petitioned the city’s Common Council seeking authorization for a bridge to be built on top of the dam. The petition mentioned Macomb’s approval for the idea, and an agreement to allow Macomb to charge tolls for passage over the bridge, with half of the toll money going to the city to help educate the poor. The Common Council announced the completion of the bridge on July 8, 1816, and recommended that the city build new roads in the area, which at the time was largely undeveloped, to take advantage of the new crossing.

When the dam was built, Macomb had a small lock, about 7 feet by 7 feet wide, installed on the Westchester County (encompassing what is now the Bronx) side of the structure. However, for unknown reasons, it was filled in with stone sometime in the late 1820s. For a while it was still possible for very small boats to pass through the openings between the piers supporting the bridge deck at high tide, but the trip was extremely hazardous. Several deaths were recorded when boats either overturned or broke apart during the passage.

Local citizens who had previously used the shores of the river for shipping coal, produce, and other materials began to organize an opposition to the obstruction caused by the dam. Robert Macomb had gone out of business by this point, and the ownership of the dam had passed through a number of hands. Complaints filed with the owners of the dam went nowhere, and the group enlisted the help of a young Lewis G. Morris.

The Nonpareil

Morris was of the belief that the obstruction of river navigation was illegal, so he devised a meticulous plan to reopen the river to traffic. He collected sworn statements from locals who had lived on the river before the construction of the dam, describing sloops and schooners sailing up the river to deliver cargo. Several times in early 1838, Morris took sail boats smaller than those described by the locals up the river to the dam, keeping detailed logs of the date, time, and the conditions of the water during the trip. Each time he reached the dam, he requested passage from the bridge tender. Each time, the bridge tender would turn him away, precisely as Morris expected, as such passage was impossible. On the night of September 14, 1838, Morris arranged for a shipment of coal to be delivered from Jersey City on board a boat named the Nonpareil to a dock he had built north of the dam in preparation for the plan. When the Nonpareil, with Morris aboard, reached the dam, passage through the dam was requested. Once again, the bridge tender refused to allow Morris through. When he did so, a band of about 100 men that had accompanied the Nonpareil on the last leg of her journey in an assortment of skiffs and flatboats went at the dam with shovels, axes, and other tools, tearing down a large enough section of the dam to allow Morris’ boat to pass through. When it was found that the tidal flow through the new opening was still difficult to navigate at anything but slack tide, the group returned the next week and spent three days tearing down additional sections of the dam.

William Renwick, the owner of the dam at the time, was furious, and attempted to have Morris arrested for disturbing the peace. When that failed, Renwick sued Morris for damages incurred to his property. In the Superior Court, Morris presented in his defense the original charter for the dam with its stipulation to allow navigation and the evidence he had collected showing that navigation, while once possible, was no longer so on account of the dam owner’s refusal. The court ruled that Morris had done nothing wrong. Renwick appealed the decision, and the Court of Errors affirmed the earlier decision. The case then went to the New York Supreme Court, where Justice J. Cowen ruled that the dam owners “have been guilty of a public nuisance” by obstructing the river with the dam. Having succeeded with his plan, Morris continued to act as an advocate for navigation and the improvement of the Harlem River, playing a major part in the construction of the High Bridge to carry the Croton Aqueduct over the river, the creation of the Harlem River Ship Canal, and other projects.

Central Bridge

After the lengthy legal battle, the owners found themselves forced to maintain an opening in the dam. This arrangement worked for a while, but increasing traffic on the river caused many to call for the complete destruction of the dam, and to have it replaced with a proper movable bridge. On April 16, 1858, the City of New York and Westchester County were directed by the state legislature to remove the dam and build a free public bridge with a turntable opening, allowing navigation of the river at any time of the day. Lewis G. Morris and Charles Bathgate, a local landowner, were appointed as commissioners to direct the project. In 1861, Central Bridge, as it was named by the city, was completed.

Central Bridge was a wooden structure requiring frequent repairs. Large portions of the bridge had to be rebuilt entirely. The square swing frame was replaced by a wooden “A” frame in 1877. The wooden approach spans were replaced by iron spans in 1883. These repairs did not seem to help much, as an 1885 New York Times article showed. “They ought to keep it for clam wagons,” said Lawson N. Fuller, a local horse racer, “though no clam with any regard for himself would ever cross the bridge if he could help it” (A Patchwork of Wood). In October 1887, the city’s Board of Estimate and Apportionment, which controlled the city’s finances, balked at the estimated $60,000 needed to once again bring the bridge into a usable state of repair, and suggested that money would be better spent on a new bridge or a tunnel under the river. The tunnel idea was very popular with local residents who were tired of travel delays incurred by frequent bridge openings. The city elected to build a new bridge, however, and an Act of Legislature passed in 1890 authorized its construction.

Macomb’s Dam Bridge

Alfred P. Boller was chosen as the head engineer of the construction of the new bridge. Boller had a solid reputation as a structural engineer with an eye for aesthetics, which was apparent in the design he selected for the new bridge.

Macomb’s Dam Bridge is a swing bridge, with a span that rotates on a center pivot to make way for boat traffic on the river. The movable span is a 415-foot long Pratt through truss structure with a rectangular central tower adorned with decorative finials and top chords gracefully curving down to the deck with a concave profile. At the time of construction, the span was said to be the heaviest movable structure in the world. The piers that support the ends of the movable span when in the closed position are constructed of granite, with large archway openings on the bottom. On top of both ends of the piers are stone gate tender’s houses with red shingled pyramidal roofs.

The approach on the Manhattan side is composed of a V-shaped intersection, with Macombs Place, formerly Macomb’s Dam Road, on the south, and West 155th Street, carried on a large viaduct on the west. The 155th Street Viaduct was built at the same time as the bridge, and was also designed by Boller. It is 1600 feet long and about 61 feet feet wide. It is a steel structure, composed of deck girder spans carried on two parallel rows of steel columns across the valley from the heights above Harlem.

The approach on the Bronx side of the bridge is composed of two Warren deck truss spans on masonry piers, six steel girder spans installed between 1949 and 1951 with the construction of the Major Deegan Expressway, and most noticeably, a 221 foot camelback through truss carrying the roadway over the Metro-North tracks below.

Construction of the bridge began in 1892, and the old bridge was moved up the river to a set of temporary piers at 156th Street to act as an alternative crossing while the new bridge was being built. The swing span and Bronx approaches for the bridge were built by the Passaic Rolling Mill Company of Paterson, NJ. The 155th Street Viaduct was built by the Union Bridge Company of Athens, PA. The ornamental iron railings and stairways on the bridge and viaduct were made by Hecla Iron Works of Brooklyn.

The bridge opened to traffic on May 1, 1895. An announcement published in the next day’s New York Times said simply, “The new Macomb’s Dam Bridge, which crosses the Harlem River at One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, was opened at 9 o’clock yesterday morning. There was no particular ceremony” (New Macomb’s Dam Bridge Opened).

The official name for the new bridge was also Central Bridge, as indicated by the ornamental plaque that still exists on the western side of the swing span. That name, however, never fell into popular use, with almost all New Yorkers continuing to refer to it by its old name, Macomb’s Dam Bridge. Martin Gay, Bridge Commissioner for the city in the early 1900′s decried the Central Bridge name as being “meaningless” (1904, Harlem River Bridges). A resolution by the Board of Alderman officially renamed it as Macomb’s Dam Bridge on November 11, 1902.

- – - – - -

References

1857. Morris, Lewis G. Harlaem River. New York: J.D. Torrey.

1858, April 26. City Items. The New York Times, p. 5. (ProQuest Document ID: 78534533).

1885, June 14. A Patchwork of Wood: The Crazy Structure Which Serves as Macomb’s Dam Bridge. The New York Times, p. 2. (ProQuest Document ID: 103022951).

1886. Scharf, J. Thomas. History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Philadelphia: L.E. Preston & Co.

1887, October 26. The Macomb’s Dam Bridge. The New York Times, p. 8. (ProQuest Document ID: 100938760).

1887, October 30. Tunneling the Harlem: Macomb’s Dam Bridge No Longer a Thing of Joy. Horsemen Tired of the Means of Communication Between North and South of the River. The New York Times, p. 11. (ProQuest Document ID: 100939366).

1895, May 2. New Macomb’s Dam Bridge Opened. The New York Times, p. 1. (ProQuest Document ID: 106060793).

1904. Gay, Martin. Harlem River Bridges. Proceedings of the Municipal Engineers of the City of New York. New York: The Society.

1918. New York (State). Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York 29 (62): 141.

1992. Landmarks Preservation Commission. Macomb’s Dam Bridge and 155th Street Viaduct. New York: Landmarks Preservation Commission.