Bridge Street Bridge is a

swing bridge A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that can be rotated horizontally around a vertical axis. It has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravit ...

over the

Passaic River The Passaic River ( or ) is a river, approximately long, in North Jersey, northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburb ...

connecting Newark and Harrison, New Jersey. It is the 10th bridge from the river's mouth at Newark Bay and is upstream from it. Carrying vehicular traffic, the roadway is designated County Route 508. Bridge Street Bridge from Broad St Br jeh

Bridge Street Bridge from Broad St Br jeh

The span is a rim-bearing Pratt thru truss swing span supported on

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

substructure with concrete caps originally built by the American Bridge Company. It opened in 1913 and underwent significant rehabilitation in 1981. It is listed on the

New Jersey Register of Historic Places The New Jersey Register of Historic Places is the official list of historic resources of local, state, and national interest in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The program is administered by the New Jersey's state historic preservation office wit ...

(ID#3093) The bridge was re-lamped in 2012. The bridge's electric motor was damaged by

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy) was an extremely large and devastating tropical cyclone which ravaged the Caribbean and the coastal Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in late ...

in 2012, requiring replacement. Like the other vehicular swing bridges in Newark, the Jackson Street Bridge and the Clay Street Bridge, it crosses over the tidal navigable portion of the river. and is required to open with 4-hour notice. The swing bridges of Newark are expected to open as much as 10 times a day during a massive clean-up of the Passaic starting in 2019 to allow barges to move contaminated sludge dredged from the river bottom raising concerns about their reliability. As of 2016 studies were underway to study its replacement.

History

The site of Bridge Street Bridge has been a river crossing since the colonial era. In 1790 the state legislature decided that "public good would be served by a wide road from Paulus Hook to the Newark Courthouse". By 1795 a bridge over the Hackensack long and another over the Passaic long were built creating an uninterrupted

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and ...

connection. The road between them is known as the Newark Turnpike.

References

* U.S. Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C. (2010)
"Bridge Street over Passaic River, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey."
''National Bridge Inventory,'' via Uglybridges.com. Structure No. 0700H03.

External links

* {{Crossings navbox , structure = Crossings , place =

, bridge = Bridge Street Bridge , bridge signs = , upstream = Newark Drawbridge , upstream signs = , downstream = Centre Street Bridge , downstream signs = Bridges in Newark, New Jersey Bridges over the Passaic River Bridges completed in 1913 Road bridges in New Jersey Harrison, New Jersey Bridges in Hudson County, New Jersey 1913 establishments in New Jersey Pratt truss bridges in the United States Swing bridges in the United States Steel bridges in the United States

History

See also

References

External links