Construction
Construction began on July 5, 1906 and was completed on October 14, 1908. Over 40,000 tons of rubble concrete (containing a great amount of large stones, for greater shear strength) were poured into the falsework, which had been built from steel bents 20 feet (6.1 m) high and 370,000 board feet (870 m3) of timber, weighing about 900 tons. The bridge's six spans total 585 ft in length (178 m). Very little use was made of reinforcing steel, which was scarce at the time. The roadway is 40 ft (12 m) wide, flanked by 10-foot (3.0 m) reinforced-concrete sidewalks and pre-cast concrete balustrades.
The chief engineer was George S. Webster, assisted by Henry Quimby, both of the Philadelphia Department of Public Works. At the time of its construction, the bridge was the longest and highest concrete arch bridge in the world. While $240,000 was originally committed to the project, the figure rose to nearly $260,000 by completion (equivalent to nearly $6 million in 2008).
Read more about this topic: Walnut Lane Bridge
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“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Striving toward a goal puts a more pleasing construction on our advance toward death.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)