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High Bridge

Posted on June 12, 2015January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Harlem River
Connects: Manhattan and the Bronx [satellite map]
Carries: Pedestrian/bike path; formerly carried the Old Croton Aqueduct in its interior
Design: Stone arch bridge with steel arch section
Date opened: 1848
Postcard views: bridgesnyc.com/postcards

The High Bridge, also known as the Aqueduct Bridge, opened in 1848 and is the oldest extant bridge in New York City. The bridge was built to carry the Croton Aqueduct into New York City from upstate New York. It crosses the Harlem River, connecting High Bridge Park in Manhattan with the Bronx near West 170th Street.

Need for Water

Providing a supply of drinking water has long been a problem for the island of Manhattan. Surrounded by brackish water (an undrinkable mixture of salt and fresh water), in its early days, the city got its water from wells, cisterns, and natural springs. However, the city was constantly growing and expanding northward; it grew especially quickly in the years following the Revolutionary War. The limited sources of fresh water available became polluted and diseases such as yellow fever were rampant. The city’s first cholera epidemic began in 1832 and infant mortality soared. The wealthy paid to have their water delivered, but the poor, living in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, had no options other than to drink polluted water. In 1832, Colonel DeWitt Clinton, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, proposed building an aqueduct to supply the city with water from the Croton River, north of the city in Westchester County.

High Bridge as originally constructed, ca.1900s

High or Low

A temporary water commission was created in 1833 with civil engineer David Bates Douglass appointed as chief engineer to plan for a new water supply. Douglass proposed a high stone arch bridge across the Harlem River as part of his plan to carry water 40 miles from Westchester to the Croton Distributing Reservoir, built between 40th and 42nd Street in Manhattan (a site currently occupied by Bryant Park and New York Public Library’s main branch, the Stephen A. Schwarzman building). The Water Commission was formally established in 1834, and more surveys were done, including one by John Martineau, which included a low bridge which would cost less but block more of the river. Martineau’s plan was initially approved in 1835. On December 16 of that same year, the Great Fire of New York began in a Merchant Street warehouse; the city was ill-equipped to fight it and the need for a sufficient water supply was yet again in the headlines. The Board of Water Commissioners, favoring a low bridge, quietly replaced Douglass with John Bloomfield Jervis in 1836; Jervis was well-known as chief engineer of the Erie Canal. Jervis surveyed and planned for the low bridge, but opposition came from the Board of Aldermen in 1838, with the argument that the low bridge would impede navigation on the Harlem River. At the time, the river was already obstructed–Macomb’s Dam to the south and mills in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx were both impassible. Though a decision had yet to be reached, the Water Commission began to build a low bridge across the Harlem River in July, 1838. That work was halted in May, 1939 when the State Legislature stepped in, giving two choices: a high bridge (allowing at least 100 feet of clearance under the bridge) or a tunnel under the river. Jervis drew up plans and construction began in August, 1839.

High Bridge Design

Water pipe inside stone portion of High Bridge, 2009 — Water pipe inside stone portion of High Bridge, 2008

The bridge built consisted of 15 circular stone arches and had a clear height of 114 feet at high tide. It was meant to look like Roman aqueducts, though many modern innovations were employed. One was making the piers hollow to lessen dead weight, at the same time allowing water to drain back to the river. An opening gala for the Croton Aqueduct was held on July 4, 1842, and a celebratory parade followed on October 14. All this celebration was somewhat premature in terms of the High Bridge, as it wasn’t fully completed until 1848; temporary pipes carried the water until it was finished. The city continued to grow, as did its water needs. By 1850, the two original 36-inch pipes in the bridge were seen as inadequate, but it took until 1861 to install a third, 90-inch pipe. Between 1866 and 1872, the 200-foot-tall High Bridge Water Tower (also designed by John B. Jervis) and a seven acre reservoir were built to allow water to flow to residents in Manhattan’s higher elevations. It, along with a reservoir Soon, the Croton Aqueduct itself was unable to keep up with the city, and more aqueduct projects were envisioned. The New Croton Aqueduct opened in 1890, followed by the Catskill Aqueduct system, partially opened in 1916 and fully completed by 1924.

Threat of Destruction

Catwalk under steel arch span and water pipe, 2009 — Catwalk and water pipe under steel arch span, 2008

World War I brought changes and threats to the High Bridge’s continued existence. On February 3, 1917, the High Bridge Aqueduct was closed. It was feared that wartime saboteurs could destroy the aqueducts and flood the city [1]; since the city already had two newer aqueducts to guard, the Old Croton was shut down so it wouldn’t have to be patrolled. It was eventually put back into service, but was never again seen as necessary. The Harlem River was used extensively for shipping during World War I and the High Bridge’s piers came to be viewed as a hazard–obstructions that had existed during the bridge’s construction, such as Macomb’s Dam, had been dealt with long ago (the dam had been replaced by a swing bridge in 1861). The Army Corps of Engineers ordered the removal of the piers that were in the river, and that turned into a suggestion by the city to simply demolish the bridge altogether. New York City’s citizens as well as numerous professional engineering organizations protested, and debates followed for the next several years. In March of 1923 it was decided that the bridge would be spared so long as a larger channel could be opened for navigation [2]. Plans for a cantilevered arch design were approved by the Municipal Arts Commission in July 1925. A New York Times article stated that, “from a distance, the projected single span will harmonize with the Washington Bridge” [3]. Five of the original arches were replaced with one steel span in 1927 [4]. The replacement steel arch has never evoked the same feelings as the stone arches, as Christopher Gray described in a 2013 New York Times article:

To see the bridge from a distance, the engineering pilgrim can brush by the piers at speed on the north- and southbound Major Deegan Expressway. But a more contemplative view can be had from Depot Place, a tiny stub off Sedgwick Avenue just south of the bridge. There, the granite piers start out from the Bronx shore in perfect majesty, only to be brought to an unseemly halt at the river. [5]

High Bridge and Water Tower, ca. 1984 (Source: Historic American Engineering Record, NY-119-10)

Closing of the Old Croton Aqueduct

Once both the New Croton Aqueduct and Catskill Aqueduct had been opened, the original Croton Aqueduct essentially became obsolete. The Croton Distributing Reservoir was torn down in the 1890s, but the “Old” Croton Aqueduct was still used to fill the Croton Receiving Reservoir, located in Central Park, until 1940, when Commissioner of Parks and Recreation Robert Moses had it taken out of service. The reservoir was filled and is now Central Park’s Great Lawn.

High Bridge walkway, closed (2009) — High Bridge walkway (closed), 2009

Closing of High Bridge

High Bridge remained open as a pedestrian path, though water had long ceased to flow within it. Rumors abound as to the exact reason for the eventual closure of the path, but a common one is that someone taking a Circle Line cruise up the Harlem River was either hurt or killed by rocks flung from the bridge. A New York Times article from April 21, 1958 states that:

Four passengers on a sightseeing boat were hurt yesterday when a gang of juveniles hurled sticks, stones and large pieces of brick from a bridge as the ship passed below. The bombardment started just as the Circle Line’s excursion boat No. 8 steamed into the shadow of High Bridge on the Harlem River. [6]

Being hit from above on the Harlem River was nothing new; in 1904 a group of oarsmen asked for police protection from “stone-throwing hoodlums who infest the various bridges over the Harlem River” [7]. Regardless of the reason, the pedestrian path was closed in the 1970s. The High Bridge was designated a New York City Landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1970 [8]. It was also made a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1975, and a National Historic Landmark in 1992. Designations aside, the bridge had fallen into a state of disrepair; Sharon Reier lamented in 1977 that “the lofty structure is now fenced off with tangles of barbed wire reminiscent of the Berlin Wall.” [9]

Reopening

The bridge sat unused for many years, other than by those brave enough to scale its barbed wire fence. Pedestrians crossed the Harlem River on the Washington Bridge several blocks to the north, a busy bridge with a narrow pedestrian lane. In 1995, 10-year-old homeschooled Maaret Klaber attended a community board meeting and asked the park committee to reopen the walkway [10]. It would be a long wait, but in 2006 the Department of Parks and Recreation announced plans to reopen the bridge, though many hurdles still remained before work could begin. Advocacy groups, including the Friends of the Old Croton Aqueduct and the High Bridge Coalition, pushed for its reopening and work began in 2012, based on a 2011 New York City Parks Department plan [11]. The restoration, financed by the city and supplemented by Federal Highway Administration funds, cost over $60 million. The bridge’s stone joints were re-mortared, its brick walkway was cleared of plants and repaired, its cast-iron fencing restored (and 8-foot-high safety netting was added outside of the decorative fencing), new lighting and ramps were added, and its steel arch was repainted. After more than 40 years, the bridge reopened to the public on June 4, 2015.

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Hunters Point Avenue Bridge

Posted on January 21, 2011January 25, 2016 by shayna

Location: Hunters Point Avenue over Dutch Kills, Queens, NY [satellite map]
Carries: 2 vehicular lanes, 2 pedestrian sidewalks
Design: bascule
Date opened: December 14, 1910

The Hunters Point Avenue Bridge carries the street bearing its name across Dutch Kills, a tributary of Newtown Creek, in Long Island City, Queens.

The Need for Movable Bridges

The section of Queens now known as Long Island City was originally low-lying marshland dotted with small towns. In 1861 the Long Island Railroad arrived after relocating its main terminal from Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn to Hunters Point in Queens (a ferry leaving 34th Street carried passengers across the East River to Hunters Point). With the area rapidly industrializing, in 1869 Hunters Point pushed to to be incorporated into a larger, more important entity, combining with Ravenswood and Astoria. Thus, in 1870 Long Island City was born. Industry boomed, and gas and chemical plants along with various other types of factories took over much of the marshland. Of course, no regulations existed at the time to dissuade the dumping of toxic by-products into the waterways, and Newtown Creek and Dutch Kills both suffered sorely from this industrial pollution. Both rivers were heavily used and required bridges that allowed the waterways to remain navigable, so a large concentration of movable bridges is seen in the area.

The Iron Bridge, 1867-1907 (Source: *Historical Facts in Connection with New York City Bridges*)

Previous Bridges

Prior to 1874, Dutch Kills was crossed at Hunters Point Avenue by a wooden bridge. With so much industry moving in to the area, it was soon inadequate and was replaced in 1874 by an iron drawbridge. The iron drawbridge was problematic, and frequently had to be put out of service to be repaired. The bridge was poorly maintained and it was obvious something had to be done to keep navigation on Dutch Kills open. In 1906, Bridge Commissioner James W. Stevenson wrote to Queens Borough President Joseph Bermel requesting that since the bridge was over navigable water it ought be operated by the Department of Bridges. Bermel agreed, and on January 25, 1906, the bridge was put under the jurisdiction of the Department of Bridges, having just been put back into working order by the Department of Highways. By March 1907, it was found that the west abutment had been pushed forward by the ever-shifting marshland and the bridge could no longer close. The iron bridge was closed to traffic permanently and the Department of Bridges began planning for its replacement.

The Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge

The design approved by the Art Commission on April 13, 1909 was for a double-leaf Scherzer Rolling Lift bascule bridge. Bids were received in July; the North-Eastern Construction Company was the lowest at $95,214.11 and was given the contract to build the bridge. Construction began on July 13, 1909 and the bridge opened to traffic on December 14, 1910. The final cost was $102.985.56, about $8000 over the bid but still under the $110,000 budget allotted to it by the Department of Bridges.

Rebuilding

By the 1970s, following decades of neglect, many of New York City’s bridges were in need of major rehabilitation. The Department of Transportation released its first-ever survey of bridge conditions in 1978 and the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge was included on the “poor” list. This was for good reason: the previous year it had been closed entirely because parts of it had rotted away, rendering it unsafe for traffic. It was repaired just enough to handle cars, but a major rehabilitation was needed. In 1983 it was rebuilt as a single-leaf bascule bridge with a span of 21.8 meters, using the foundations of the Scherzer bridge. It celebrated its 100th birthday in December 2010, which was marked by a walking tour hosted by the New York City Bridge Centennial Commission and the Newtown Creek Alliance.

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Macomb’s Dam Bridge

Posted on March 11, 2010January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Harlem River
Connects: Washington Heights, Manhattan and Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY [satellite map]
Carries: 4 vehicular lanes, 2 sidewalks
Design: swing
Date opened: May 1, 1895
Postcard view: “Viaduct 155th Street, New York City.”

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

Sign warning of gong signaling bridge opening

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.

Original bridge (Source: Harlem River Bridges) — Original bridge (Source: *Harlem River Bridges*)

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.

1861 square frame bridge (Source: Harlem River Bridges) — 1861 square swing frame bridge (Source: *Harlem River Bridges*)

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.

Bridge plaque reading "Central Bridge" — Bridge plaque reading “Central Bridge”

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.

Macomb's Dam Bridge from the Harlem River — Macomb’s Dam Bridge from the Harlem River

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Marine Parkway Bridge

Posted on March 8, 2011January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Rockaway Inlet in Jamaica Bay
Connects: Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn and the Rockaways, Queens, NY [satellite map]
Carries: 4 vehicular lanes, 1 pedestrian sidewalk
Design: vertical lift bridge
Date opened: July 3, 1937
Postcard view: “Marine Parkway Bridge, Brooklyn, N.Y.”

The Marine Parkway Bridge (also known as the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge) is a vertical lift bridge which connects Flatbush Avenue at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn with Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden in the Rockways in Queens.

Plans for a New Bridge: Robert Moses & The Marine Parkway Authority

Fiorello LaGuardia was narrowly elected Mayor of New York City in 1933; he would serve three terms from 1934 to 1945. LaGuardia was impressed by the parkways Robert Moses had built in Long Island (and by his ability to raise federal funds to finance them), and he immediately offered him a job in his administration. Moses had plans for parkways and parks in New York City ready to go, and he only agreed to take the job from LaGuardia if he would have control of the parks departments in all five boroughs, which had previously been independent of one another. Moses also wanted control of the parkways; LaGuardia agreed. Moses quickly took over the the Triborough Bridge Authority; that bridge’s construction had begun in 1929 but had stalled and remained incomplete. He also introduced a plan to finance construction of the Marine Parkway Bridge that called for the creation of the Marine Parkway Authority, of which, of course, Moses would be chairman and sole member. He raised money for these and other projects (which would charge tolls when they opened) by issuing bonds; when a project was complete, he would not sell off the bonds but would begin another toll-collecting project, continuing the cycle.

Opposition

Moses issued $6,000,000 in bonds in order to build the Marine Parkway Bridge, and it was expected that within 25 years, through toll collection the bridge would pay for the loan and allow the bridge to be self-sustaining. However, there was plenty of opposition to the bridge proposal. The surrounding communities had been served by ferries and many people did not want to see that change. There were others who felt that Jamaica Bay might one day become a major port and the building of a bridge would destroy that potential. So, more than $18 million was spent by the U.S. War Department to dredge Rockaway Inlet and the bridge was designed to be a lift span, to enable the channel to remain clear for ship traffic. There was also the issue of ice: it was feared that ice would pile up on the bridge piers and either block passage or cause the surrounding areas to flood, sweeping cottages along Rockaway Beach out to sea. The solution was to bring in a forest of 600-foot-tall Douglas fir trees from the west coast to be driven into the sand and act as fenders against the ice around the bridge’s piers.

Marine Parkway Bridge, seen from Floyd Bennett Field

The Barren Island Squatters

Another problem encountered before construction of the bridge could begin was a well-established colony of squatters living on what formerly was known as Barren Island. Barren Island was a roughly three mile long and one mile wide stretch in the southern Brooklyn section of Jamaica Bay. In the late 1800s, the land at either end of the island the island was home to several putrid-smelling industries including fish, fat, and offal rendering plants and another that rendered horse bones into glue, leading to the the body of water on the island’s western shore’s name: Dead Horse Bay. About 120 acres in the center of the island was owned by the city, intended to be used as a dumping ground. However, due to the city’s neglect, the land was taken over by a colony of squatters, who by 1877 numbered around 100. The squatters kept livestock such as goats and pigs, and even set up a liquor saloon on the island. The stench of the rendering plants grew worse and worse, and after years of complaints from Brooklyn residents, the plants were required to dump their refuse at sea. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle described the situation in 1899 as being “improved:”

Nowadays the ancient cheeses, the butchers’ offal, the long-deceased animals, the contents of refuse cans and barrels are not piled along the waterfront… On the contrary, the process is quick and thorough. Deodorizing substances are freely used in the materials that are disgorged from New York’s thousands of kitchens and butcher shops. The sufferings that are reported in various parts of Brooklyn and along the south shore probably result in larger measure than the people realize from the dumping which is still carried on at sea, the scows going out six or eight miles, instead of the required forty, and throwing overboard tons of swill that the incoming tide washes upon the shored of Coney Island, Rockaway and even Long Beach. This vile stuff festers in the sun, sours and breeds maggots and flies by millions. [1]

Despite many attempts over the years to remove the squatters, they stayed put. Barren Island was connected to the Brooklyn mainland with landfill during the construction of Floyd Bennett Field (New York City’s first municipal airport), which opened in 1931. By then the rendering plants were long gone, but the squatters still remained. In 1936, Robert Moses, as Park Commissioner, called for their eviction; at that time there were an estimated 90 squatters (and their livestock) still living on the former island. They were given until April 15, 1936 to vacate, and Alderman Joseph B. Whitty of Brooklyn was granted a promise by Mayor LaGuardia that the houses on the island would be treated as “condemned tenements” [2], so that the squatters would be provided with free moving service as they left the island. In August of the same year, five acres of marijuana plants were discovered on the island, upon which the goats the squatters had kept had been grazing. The squatters, when questioned, denied that there was any other intended use for the plants.

Engineering

Moses the planner had engineers ready to work on the Marine Parkway Bridge. The chief engineer on the project was Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate Emil H. Praeger (who worked on numerous projects for the Parks system and went on to design the Tappan Zee Bridge). The firm of Madigan-Hyland were also involved as engineers. Robinson & Steinman were hired as consultants; Holton D. Robinson was the engineer of the Williamsburg Bridge and David Steinman designed the Henry Hudson Bridge as his thesis while at Columbia University. The title of Engineering Designer was filled by the esteemed Waddell & Hardesty, formed in 1927. Also both Rensselaer graduates, the firm of J.A.L. Waddell and Shortridge Hardesty was known for its movable bridge designs, especially vertical lift spans. The contractors awarded the bids for construction of the bridge were the Frederic Snare Corporation and the American Bridge Company.

Construction & Design

Construction began on June 1, 1936. A method differing from usual lift bridge construction was used, where instead of floating the lift span in at the very end, it was placed partway through, planned to coincide with a particularly high tide. Just after midnight on January 12, 1937, 38 workmen from the American Bridge Company began the operation; tugboats guided the central span along and at 7:45 a.m., while the tide was at its highest, it was placed into position. The partially built towers had a special trestle attached to their foundations from which the towers would be completed.

The bridge is designed of three main 540-foot spans, each allowing for a 500-foot clear channel. There are two 1,061-foot approaches; its total length is 4,022 feet, 6 inches. The 2,000-ton central span could be raised from 50 feet to a total clearance of 150 feet above the high water mark in two minutes. When it was completed it was the longest highway lift bridge in the world (it is still the longest of its type in North America), built of 12,000 tons of steel and 47,000 cubic yards of concrete. The bridge was painted olive green with silver trim. The roadway, instead of being solid, was built of steel plates, similar to subway gratings set in sidewalks throughout the city. It was the first roadway of this type to be used on a bridge on the East Coast. The open grates were also painted green.

One complaint about vertical lift bridges at the time was that their appearance could be ugly; often they were employed by railroads and were decidedly utilitarian in design. In response to this, the towers of the Marine Parkway Bridge were tapered and a pattern designed to hint at the great wheels that lifted the bridge rather than hiding them [3]. Construction was finished less than a year after it began, and the bridge was scheduled to open in July, in time for motorists to enjoy the summer in the new Jacob Riis Park.

Opening Ceremony

The bridge officially opened on July 3, 1937. The ceremony was headed by Mayor LaGuardia who was joined by Park Commissioner Robert Moses and various other city officials. 500 cars full of invited guests waited on the Brooklyn side of the bridge, on the approach built on Barren Island. Guns were fired from Fort Tilden, fireboats sprayed water into the air, and nine Martin planes flew in formation overhead. The center span was lowered for traffic and at 10:30 a.m. a parade of cars began to cross the bridge to Jacob Riis Park, where Moses gave a speech detailing the planning that had led up to the building of the bridge. It was given recognition in the engineering world as well: The National Steel Bridge Alliance awarded it first place in the movable bridge category in 1937.

Renaming & Rehabilitation

The bridge was renamed in 1978 in honor of Gil Hodges, a former Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman, though the name has not taken into common usage [4]. The Marine Parkway Authority was absorbed into the larger Triborough Bridge Authority in 1940 (becoming he Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority in 1946). Traffic and toll collection on the Marine Parkway Bridge did not turn out to be enough to pay for its own expenses, but other bridges and tunnels run by the TBTA were profitable enough to carry those that were less so. The TBTA is now under the jurisdiction of the MTA, who began a major rehabilitation project on the bridge in 1998. The steel deck was replaced with concrete and steel, a “Jersey” barrier was added to separate traffic, electrical systems and traffic control were updated, and new signs were put in place. The $120 million project was finished in 2004; the bridge still opens more than 100 times a year.

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Midtown Bridge

Posted on June 25, 2015January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Hackensack River
Connects: Hackensack and Bogota, NJ [satellite map]
Carries: 2 vehicular lanes, 1 sidewalk
Design: (former) swing bridge, fixed into place in 1984
Date opened: 1900

The Midtown Bridge, also known as the Salem Street Bridge and William C. Ryan Memorial Bridge, is a fixed through truss bridge that was formerly a swing bridge. It spans the Hackensack River, connecting Hackensack and Bogota in Bergen County, New Jersey.

Midtown Bridge-03 — Passaic Rolling Mill Co. founder’s mark on steel beam

The bridge was originally built in 1900 by F.R. Long and Company as a trolley bridge for the Bergen County Traction Company. Steel for the bridge was provided by the Passaic Rolling Mill Company of Paterson, NJ. The bridge’s original design was a through Pratt truss swing span on a stone center pier and it carried two sets of tracks. The Bergen County Traction Company had been formed in 1894, and opened in 1896, connecting ferry passengers traveling from Manhattan to Edgewater to trolley lines to Fort Lee, Leonia, Englewood, Teaneck, Bogota, and Hackensack. The lines were consolidated in 1900 into the New Jersey and Hudson River Railway Company and later sold to the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey in 1910. The Bergen Division of the Public Service Railway continued to carry trolleys over the Hackensack (a 1937 image can be seen in Figure 139 (page 189) of Streetcars of New Jersey: Metropolitan Northeast [1]).

However, with the rise of the automobile, transportation was changing, and trolley routes began to be replaced by buses. By 1938 all trolleys had been discontinued in Bergen County; the bridge’s tracks were replaced with a steel deck and in 1940 the Midtown Bridge began carrying vehicular traffic. It continued to operate as a swing bridge until a rehabilitation project in 1984, when it was fixed in place and its machinery was removed. In 1980, the bridge was given the additional name of “Ryan Memorial Bridge,” named after Bogota resident and U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant William C. Ryan, who was killed in North Vietnam in 1969.

The Midtown Bridge has only recently been notable for being in need of repair. It was shut down for several weeks in 1998 by the Department of Public Works so that emergency repairs could be made to its steel joints. The issue was described by county engineer Robert Mulder as “an ongoing problem that needs to be permanently fixed” [2]; however, that fix has been continually delayed. A project to rehabilitate the Court Street Bridge, another former swing bridge in Hackensack downriver from the Midtown Bridge, meant that it was closed from 2010-2012, with much of the Court Street Bridge’s traffic diverted to the Midtown Bridge during that time. On October 17, 2013 the Midtown Bridge was shut down for emergency repairs again; Bogota’s Council President and Office of Emergency Management coordinator Tito Jackson had noticed a large separation in the bridge’s metal decking at its joints [3]. The current plan is to replace the aging span with a bridge with a concrete deck. Bergen County is home to a number of bridges in need of major repair or replacement, so there is no timetable for the project as of yet.

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Mill Creek Footbridge

Posted on May 27, 2013January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Mill Creek
Connects: Jersey Avenue and Liberty State Park, Jersey City [satellite map]
Carries: Pedestrian/cyclist sidewalk
Design: Arch bridge
Date opened: May 23, 2013

The Mill Creek Footbridge connects Jersey Avenue in downtown Jersey City, NJ with Philip Street in Liberty State Park. The current bridge replaced an older structure that was destroyed on October 29, 2012, during Hurricane Sandy. Mill Creek feeds into the Morris Canal Basin (now used as a marina) and then the Hudson River.

Original Bridge

Little information is available about the original bridge. Taking into account that maps may be inaccurate, it appears that a Jersey Avenue road bridge crossing Mill Creek was built sometime between 1874 and 1889. A railroad bridge running parallel to it was constructed by 1904. The railroad trestle carried both the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Both lines terminated before crossing the Morris Canal to the north (the canal was located just south of Grand Street). The road portion was demolished at some point between 1928 and 1955. Following the decline of the railroads in Jersey City, the trestle was abandoned and the bridge was converted into a footbridge sometime thereafter. The Jersey Journal notes that city officials do not know exactly when the bridge became a footbridge, and Sam Pesin (president of the group Friends of Liberty State Park) thinks it was there when the park opened in 1976 [1].

The Jersey Avenue Extension

Various proposals have been made over the last twenty years or so to extend Jersey Avenue over Mill Creek, connecting Downtown with Liberty State Park, as well as providing additional access to the New Jersey Turnpike. The city applied for an $18.4 million federal grant in 2011 to fund the extension. The proposal argues that the extension would ease traffic in the nearby Bergen-Lafayette neighborhood. However, it has also sparked debate among residents over how much local streets would be impacted by cars exiting the Turnpike to avoid traffic at the Holland Tunnel; cars cutting through local Downtown streets have long been an issue. The proposal acknowledges this and tries to defend its position:

The city is also mindful that this new direct connection could be perceived as a short cut for out-of-town commuters by using the 1.2-mile corridor between New Jersey Turnpike Exit 14B and Grand Street to access Jersey City’s central business district or the Holland Tunnel. This corridor traverses Liberty State Park and residential development areas. To achieve the overall goal of improved connectivity and access without increasing traffic speeds and/or inducing additional traffic through the environmentally sensitive park areas or future residential neighborhoods, a series of modern roundabouts are proposed in the park segments and a more pedestrian friendly “complete street” is proposed in the northern segment of dense urban development. [2]

The city was not given the grant and the footbridge was destroyed the following October during Sandy. Initially, it was speculated that the city would not replace the footbridge at all, in hopes that it would be able to begin construction on the Jersey Avenue Extension, which would include a pedestrian pathway. However, it was decided that the footbridge would be replaced (a widely-held suspicion is that it was given priority because 2013 is an election year). In March of 2013, Jersey City was awarded $500,000 by the federal government to do a feasibility study for a road extension; that proposed bridge would run parallel to the new footbridge, which was set to open by Memorial Day weekend.

The new Mill Creek Footbridge was delivered on May 1 and opened on May 23rd. It is a prefabricated arch bridge that is painted white; it has a somewhat higher clearance over the creek than its predecessor. It was scheduled to cost about $750,000 and wound up costing about $800,000. Jersey City has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which could reimburse the city for most of the cost of the bridge. It is officially called the Ethel Pesin Liberty Bridge, in honor of a founding trustee of Friends of Liberty State Park (and wife of Sam Pesin). She died in February, 2013, at age 98.

Original walkway, 2010 (left); Replacement walkway, 2013 (right)

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Monroe Street Bridge

Posted on June 12, 2011January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Passaic River
Location: Monroe Street connecting Passaic and Garfield, NJ [satellite map]
Carries: 2 vehicular lanes, 1 pedestrian sidewalk
Design: arch bridge
Date opened: June 13, 1908
Postcard view: “Monroe Street Bridge, Passaic, N.J.”

The Monroe Street Bridge is a reinforced concrete arch bridge over the Passaic River in New Jersey, connecting the towns of Passaic and Garfield.

Gilbert D. Bogart & East Passaic

In early 1873, Gilbert D. Bogart set out to develop a suburb to the town of Passaic, which he called East Passaic. He and his associates formed the East Passaic Land Company and bought property along the Passaic River from Monroe Street to Van Winkle Avenue. His company was responsible for the first development in the area. In 1875, a bridge across the Passaic was built at Monroe Street by Joseph Scott, and seven houses were also constructed. However, the financial panic of 1873 brought Bogart’s project to a grinding halt. Lots on the land acquired by the East Passaic Land Company could not be sold even at greatly reduced prices. The company suffered heavy losses and years passed without any sign of recovery.

On December 8, 1878, Scott’s Monroe Street Bridge was washed away when the Passaic River overflowed its banks. In 1881, the Bergen County Short Cut (a branch of the Erie Railroad) was laid along Monroe street, and a rail bridge was built to Passaic (next to where the washed-out bridge had been); a station was created and named after President Garfield.

Rail bridge next to the Monroe Street Bridge

Things still were not improving for Bogart’s company, and in 1882 it sold all its land under foreclosure to the Garfield Land Association. The name “East Passaic” had become associated with failure and the town adopted the name of Garfield instead. The land was sold as individual lots by the Garfield Land Association with the remainder going to the newly formed Monroe Street Bridge Land Company, which built a replacement bridge shortly after.

The Current Bridge

The bridge currently crossing Monroe Street was built in 1908 by the C.W. Dean Company of New York. The plans for the bridge had been put together by F.R. Long Company Engineers and Contractors in August of 1907. It is a three-span, 306-foot long deck arch bridge on a concrete and stone substructure. The bridge is made up of three equal elliptical arch spans. It originally featured a decorative railing with vase-shaped balusters. The bridge was important to the industrial and commercial development of both Passaic and Garfield, and is the only existing pre-World War II multi-span concrete arch bridge remaining in the United States.

The Monroe Street Bridge opened on June 13, 1908. A parade was held and Mayor John Karl of Garfield and Mayor Frederick R. Low of Passaic met to officially open the bridge to the public. A celebration was held in a nearby park afterward.

Alterations

The Monroe Street Bridge has been repaired extensively over the years. In 1947 guide rail was added to the curbs, and new concrete curbs followed in 1948. Many repairs to the substructure were made using gunite (a dry form of shotcrete) in 1949. Large parts of the balustrades were missing or badly damaged, and they were replaced by a more utilitarian railing sometime after Bergen County did a survey the bridge in the early 1980s. New Jersey’s 2002 survey of the bridge deemed that it had lost much of its “visual integrity” due to the nature of the gunite repairs [1].

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Passaic River Bridge (1&9)

Posted on December 28, 2009March 2, 2016 by shayna

Passaic River Bridge with Pulaski Skyway in background

Crosses: Passaic River
Connects: South Kearny and Newark, NJ [satellite map]
Carries: 4 vehicular lanes, 2 sidewalks
Design: vertical lift
Date opened: January 26, 1941

Traveling east along the 1&9 Truck Route from Newark to Jersey City, you may notice a small steel plaque on the Passaic River crossing proclaiming that span to be 1941’s Most Beautiful Steel Bridge. That designation, given by the American Institute of Steel Construction, was awarded the year that bridge opened to traffic.

The bridge replaced a low level swing span that had been in place since 1921. That bridge, with a 10 foot clearance over the river, required an average of 30 openings a day to accommodate marine traffic, causing significant automobile traffic delays. Problems were exacerbated by the opening of the Holland Tunnel in 1927 as the final link between the interstate Lincoln Highway and New York City. Though the opening of the Pulaski Skyway, located just a short distance north of this route, was intended to alleviate these problems, the Skyway was effectively obsolete as soon as it was opened to traffic. The diversion of all truck traffic from the Skyway in 1933 further complicated problems along the route. Construction of a new span commenced in 1938, at a projected cost of two million dollars.

Design

The vertical lift design of the new bridge required the construction of two large steel towers on each side of the navigation channel, connected by a movable deck, which has a span of 332.5 feet. In the closed position, the new bridge provided 40 feet of clearance over the Passaic, reducing the number of daily bridge openings to an estimated 5 per day. Tower drive motors, a fairly new innovation at the time, were able to lift the deck 95 feet above its closed position, allowing for a maximum of 135 feet clearance, a minimum height specified by the War Department for marine crossings. The chief engineer was Morris Goodkind, with the firm of Howard, Needles, Tammen and Bergendoff as consulting engineers. The substructure was fabricated by Senior and Palmer and the superstructure by the American Bridge Company.

Construction

The Passaic River Bridge took three years to complete under the supervision of lead engineer Morris Goodkind and the New Jersey State Highway Commission, with the final cost just barely exceeding the projected estimate by just under $56,000. The bridge was constructed as close to the south side of the old span as logistically possible in order to ease the transfer of the traffic alignment from the old bridge to the new. During the final phase of construction, with everything in place except for the moveable deck, river traffic was halted for 72 hours while the deck could be installed.

In what must have been a very carefully choreographed procedure, the deck was floated into the work location on a barge at high tide and aligned with the rest of the structure. As the tide receded, the deck gradually sank into position on the bridge piers. After the 64 lifting ropes attached to the lift’s counterweights were connected to the deck, the bridge was essentially complete, save for some fine tuning needed to ensure proper bridge operation. It was opened to traffic at 11 PM on Sunday, January 14th, 1941.

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Passaic Street Bridge

Posted on September 14, 2010January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Passaic River
Connects: Wall Street, Passaic and Passaic Street, Garfield, NJ [satellite map]
Carries: 2 vehicular lanes, 2 pedestrian sidewalks
Design: girder bridge
Date opened: 1898

The Passaic Street Bridge is the earliest known example of a multi-span through-girder bridge in Bergen County, New Jersey. It connects the towns of Passaic and Garfield and is the third bridge at that location.

The Iron Bridge

The first bridge to cross the Passaic River at Garfield was known as the Iron Bridge; it opened in 1868. On September 11, 1871, one of the bridge’s three spans collapsed while carrying a team of horses and a driver. All fell into the Passaic, and while the horses escaped without injury, their driver was killed. A decision was made to completely rebuild rather than repair, and a new Iron Bridge opened in 1872.

That bridge was replaced in 1898 with the current structure, again made of iron but also reinforced with cement. The engineers on the project were the Wise & Watson Company of Passaic. The builders were the F.R. Long Company. The bridge is 233 feet long and, like its predecessors, is composed of three spans resting on ashlar masonry abutments.

The Flood of 1903

The summer of 1903 brought above average rainfall, and a tropical storm hit the east coast in early October. For nearly two weeks the Passaic River overflowed its banks in what became known as the Flood of 1903 (still the largest on record for the area). Almost all the bridges downriver of the Great Falls in Paterson were washed away, but the Passaic Street Bridge managed to survive the torrents.

Alterations

The Passaic Street Bridge has undergone a few rounds of alterations, none of which are considered to impact its historic status [1]. Welded plates were added to the deck girders and concrete caps to the masonry below the bridge. In 1989 the bridge was rehabilitated, with the deck and stringers replaced and the floor beams mended.

011passaicst03 — Passaic Street Bridge from the Passaic side of the river

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Passaic Street Bridge, Lodi

Posted on March 7, 2014January 25, 2016 by shayna

Crosses: Saddle River
Location: Carries Passaic Street over the Saddle River in Lodi, NJ [satellite map]
Carries: 2 vehicular lanes, 2 pedestrian sidewalks
Design: Through-girder bridge
Date opened: 1903

The Passaic Street Bridge carries Passaic Street (which becomes Passaic Avenue and feeds into Main Street) across the Saddle River in Lodi, New Jersey. It was built by the American Bridge Company in 1903. It is a through-girder bridge that rests on stone abutments. In 1939 (and again in 1971), the girders underwent repairs and welded plates were added to strengthen them. Also in 1971, much of the original concrete encasement on the floorbeams was removed and a metal deck was installed. Some of the original metal railing remains on the span, and one partially-broken plaque gives information on the bridge’s construction. New Jersey’s 2002 Bridge Survey notes that the bridge is one of more than 20 of its type in the state, and due to the construction on it over the years, “the altered span has lost its visual integrity and it is not distinguished.” [1]

Though the bridge may not be unique in its construction, it is of a type that is frequently replaced with more modern spans, and over its 110-plus years in existence it has been witness to much change in Lodi.

Industry on the Saddle River

The town of Lodi has existed in some form since Revolutionary times, and the township of Lodi was organized in 1825, taking its name from a town in Italy. The Saddle River was important to the growth of the town into a manufacturing center. By the late 1800’s, the river provided the power to two grist- and saw-mills, a bleaching and dyeing factory called United Piece Dye Works, and the Lodi Chemical Works. [2]

The borough of Lodi was incorporated in 1894 out of Lodi Township and Saddle River Township, during New Jersey’s period of “Borough Fever” of the late nineteenth century. Starting in 1894, New Jersey allowed new boroughs to be formed by petition, rather than as a special act of the state legislature. Bergen County took particular advantage of this–56 out of 70 total municipalities in the county are now boroughs.

United Piece Dye Works

The late 1890’s saw an influx of immigrants, mainly from Italy, coming to Lodi to work at the United Piece Dye Works. The factory was just upstream from the current location of the Passaic Street Bridge on the Saddle River. The dye made there became a part of the landscape. Anthony Taormina, who was born in Lodi in 1954 and went on to become the director of its library from 1986 until his retirement in 2011, described the Dye Works’ effect on the the river:

“I remember my mother telling me about walking over the Passaic Street bridge on her way to school, looking at the different chemical colors coming down the Saddle River. One day it would be green, one day it would be blue, depending on what color they were dying that day.” [3]

Chemical Manufacturing

Plaque in Lodi Memorial Park commemorating the victims of the Napp Technologies explosion

During the Great Depression, much of the textile business that had been in and around Passaic, NJ moved south in order to cut labor costs. United Dye Works closed in the 1950’s and soon chemical manufacturers moved into the town.

An explosion tore the roof off a building at the B.L. Lemke Company in April of 1969, killing one person and wounding six. In August of 1973, an explosion at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company killed seven employees. After that incident, the town cracked down somewhat on the industry: it prohibited new chemical companies from moving in and prevented the existing ones from expanding further.

B.L. Lemke later became Napp-Lemke Chemicals, and later still Napp Technologies. In April of 1995 another explosion rocked the complex, killing five and injuring seven. Approximately 400 residents of Lodi were evacuated. The Saddle River turned a fluorescent green color from the chemically contaminated water runoff generated by firefighting efforts at the plant.

Lodi’s problems with chemicals weren’t limited to explosions. The town once got its water from natural wells, run by the Lodi Water Works. In 1983, they were shut down after it was discovered that they had been contaminated by thorium, a radioactive chemical made in Lodi by another chemical company. Water has been piped in from elsewhere ever since.

Legislation introduced after the Napp Technologies explosion prevented the company from reopening in Lodi. The area it once occupied now is parkland and a shopping area.

Flooding

The Saddle River has flooded many times over the years. In March 1902 the water rose 14 inches above the previous bridge. Though no information has been found to support this, it can be speculated that the bridge was replaced in 1903 because of damage done during the 1902 flood (this was the case with many bridges over the nearby Passaic River). An even larger flood occurred in October of 1913: the Saddle River reached a height of six-and-a-half feet above the bridge [4]. Floods continue today and local officials have attempted to pass legislation which would allow for dredging of the river, but the estimated cost of $100 million has held the project back [5].

replacement metal deck — Replacement metal deck

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