Willis Avenue Bridge
Willis Avenue Bridge, 1900s
Then
Shortly after the Third Avenue Bridge opened in 1898 it became overwhelmed with traffic. A bridge to connect Willis Avenue in Mott Haven with 125th Street at First Avenue in Manhattan was approved in 1894 and Thomas C. Clarke was selected to design it (he also designed the Third Avenue Bridge). The bridge would cross a rail yard owned by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Securing easements to cross the rail property caused some delays, and construction began late in 1897.
The bridge featured a 304-foot swing span with 24 feet of clearance at high tide. There was also a truss span to carry traffic over the rail terminal. The bridge opened on August 22, 1901.
The Willis Avenue Bridge was never praised for its beauty. Sharon Reier, in The Bridges of New York, provides a quote from scholar Livingston Schuyler, saying that the design of the bridge “would be intolerable to a designer of any aesthetic sensibility and that such a designer would find some way of circumventing its awkwardness.”
Willis Avenue Bridge, 2010
1901-2010
The bridge was reconfigured in 1914 to accommodate trolley service. The Union Railway Company began running trains over the bridge on April 5, 1916; the route ran from 134th Street in Mott Haven over the bridge to 125th Street in Manhattan; it terminated at the ferry terminal in Fort Lee.
The trolley service ended on August 5, 1941 after the city decided to change both the Third Avenue Bridge and the Willis Avenue Bridge to each carry traffic in only one direction.
Like the majority of the other Harlem River Bridges, the Willis Avenue Bridge began to show its age, prompting talk of what approach should be taken to fix the bridge. In 1999, the New York City Department of Transportation, the New York State Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration proposed either rehabilitation or rebuilding the structure. A decision was reached in 2001 to replace the bridge completely (NYCDOT [PDF]).
Willis Avenue Bridge, 2012
Now
The swing span for the replacement bridge was built in 2009 in Coeymans, New York. The span was then moved to Bayonne, New Jersey, on a barge in July 2010. The approaches to the bridge were built next to the old structure and the swing was then floated to the Harlem River. The new bridge opened to traffic on October 2, 2010, ahead of the projected 2012 completion date.
Initially, the city tried to sell the original span—for $1, with free delivery to anywhere within 15 miles. There were no takers, and the original span was barged to Bayonne and dismantled for scrap. Granite from the bridge was used in Pulaski Park in the Bronx and in Brooklyn Bridge Park.