History
The bridge was built between 1901 and 1904 by American Bridge Company on new piers immediately next to the 1868 bridge it replaced whilst the old bridge remained in use.
The 1868 bridge was a five span wrought iron lattice truss built for the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway with two simple plate girder spans as approach roads at each end.
In 1918 the bridge and associated approaches were raised (as were other neighbouring bridges) to increase navigable headroom.
The lower level was used by local freight trains switching in the Downtown area and the Strip District. Its tracks were removed in the 1950s as part of a major track and platform realignment through Pennsylvania Station.
-
Center span, from a parking lot
-
From south bank
Read more about this topic: Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)