Today’s NY Times (also known by some who fear and hate it as the “failing New York Times”) has a fine article and photos of the Hell Gate Bridge, which turns 100 years old next Thursday. Who doesn’t enjoy the ride up and over this magnificent bridge and its approaches? For nearly 50 years, every time I cross this bridge I put down what I’m doing and just look…and admire. So does everyone else in my car usually.
Here is an example of what our great-grandfathers’ generation could do when challenged. A big thank you to Gustav Lidenthal, its brilliant designer, and the wonderful old Pennsylvania Railroad.
By the way, has anyone here ever owned the Lionel Trains copy of the bridge? Even that’s impressive!
I assume that is Gustav Lindenthal in the middle of the front row in that October 1916 photo. That is exactly how I would imagine someone with that name at that time.
Note that the catenary doesn’t appear to have been installed yet at the time of these photos. I’ll have to look and see if that’s referenced in Bill Middleton’s books on either electrification or the great engineering achievements.
EDIT: Apparently the 2 passenger tracks were electrified by the time of the formal opening in 1917, but the freight lines were not electriifed until 1927:
Did everyone catch the part about the 60’ boulevard and trolley tracks carried on a separate upper level ‘at a comparatively moderate expenditure’? I hadn’t heard that before reading this.
Also found for the first time, to my relative horror, that I have been using the wrong name for the part of the PRR between Newark and Penn Station. And that the Bay Ridge freight connection of the New Haven was actually LIRR. And that the Hell Gate Bridge was originally intended as a New York Central connection.
Thanks for a great deal of insight in a comparatively short time, from an impeccable reference.
Crossed that bridge too many times to count when I lived in Pittsburgh. The ‘car shed’ shown in the first picture is for the P&LE’s Pittsburgh Station that was used by B&O through trains (after trackage rights were obtained) and the P&LE. The station is immediately to the right of the bridge in the 2nd two pictures. It still exists and has been ‘redeveloped’ as Station Square.
Did this ever happen? In the pictures posted there are no roadways going through the side portals of the “towers” and no highway lanes exist today as near as I can determine. I know the Hoey P Long Bridge in New Orleans has highway lanes and other bridges are dual purpose but did the Hell Gate ever carry non rail vehicles?
No love for the New Haven RR in all this? The PRR didn’t build it all by themselves. Heck, the NH operated the entire New York Connecting RR as part of their system, not the PRR’s. Not a single PRR engine crossed the Hell Gate until the PC merger of 1969. Yes, the PRR put down most of the cash, but it was a New Haven bridge.
I’m somewhat reminded of the Walkway Over The Hudson park in Poughkeepsie, NY, using the NH’s old Maybrook Line bridge. They have a plaque describing the different levels of donations to the park, using railroad names for the various levels. The NH isn’t even mentioned and it was their bridge for 65 years! Number 1? The New York Central level…and they only went under the darn bridge. [sigh] No respect…
No highway lanes, except possibly construction lanes, ever crossed the bridge. Of course ever since the late 1930’s it is entirely paralleled by the Triboro Bridge’s Bronx-Queens lanes.
Re: Tri-Borough Bridge article posted by wanswheel just above:
". . . suspension bridge of the cheap “pole-and-washline” architecture . . . only 300 feet below Hell Gate Bridge . . . " [(-D]
I wonder if he was writing about all suspension bridges - he might well have been, in view of the monumental style of the bridges he designed - or just this particular scheme.
Paul3- My late ex-father in law said that he rode over the Poughkeepsie Bridge on a troop train and he could feel it sway. I had friends there who recall the fire on the bridge in 1974 and it dropped debris for years before all the old ties and such were finally removed above the east side sometime in the 1980s. The approach tracks on both sides were pulled out in about 1984. I wonder if Andy’s restaurant is still going, located below the bridge on the east side. Best chili in town!
Another thing I recall. Supposedly a guy bought the bridge from Conrail for one dollar. Central Hudson ran their wires on brackets on the side of the bridge and sent checks to the guy and then stopped when they ran wires under the river. Years later attempts were made to find him and get permission to put the walkway on it but no one remembered just who he was. All they had was a phone number that turned out to be from a taxi stand in Scranton, PA.
Paul3- The New Haven has to be one of the most overlooked and underappreciated railroads out there. Their diversity of equipment in steam, diesel and electric was as interesting as the Pennsy.
PA’s, C-Liners, DL 109’s, and so on plus they had their fair share of freight haul…their contribution to the overall economy was enormous.
He’s almost certainly writing about the tendency of mid-Thirties suspension-bridge construction to use thin tower construction, making the result look like clotheslines strung from a couple of chair backs.
Compare his friend Ammann’s George Washington Bridge … both with its original limestone cladding, and later in the form that made Jeanneret talk about architecture throwing off its chains and beginning to laugh…
You’re not thinking of the 1930’s bridges over San Francisco Bay, are you?
As much as I admire Lindenthal’s work, such as the Smithfield Street Bridge and Hell Gate Bridge, in my opinion the Golden Gate Bridge is the most beautiful bridge of all. Seen from the bay, the two towers look to me like tuning forks with their narrowing toward the top. Most elegant.
I have never understood the appeal (other than size) of the George Washington Bridge; I’m sorry the towers were never clad as designed.
The other railway bridge that must be admired and respected is the spectacular Firth of Forth bridge north of Edinburgh. Impressive, to say the least.
The photos in this thread from wanswheel and others are beautiful and have that amazing clarity of b/w pictures from years ago. Many thanks.
And Paul3, you’re right: the New Haven deserves much more praise and attention than it often gets.
Speaking of that, the four tracks that connect the NE Corridor at (or near) New Rochelle to the tracks to & from GCT were built/owned/operated by whom?
