The Hell Gate Bridge (originally the New York Connecting Railroad Bridge) is a railroad bridge in New York City. The bridge carries two tracks of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and one freight track between Astoria, Queens, and Port Morris, Bronx, via Randalls and Wards Islands. Its main span is a steel through arch across Hell Gate, a strait of the East River that separates Wards Island from Queens. The bridge also includes several approach viaducts and two spans across smaller waterways; including these spans, the bridge is long. It is one of the few rail connections from Long Island, of which Queens is part, to the continental United States.
The New York Connecting Railroad (NYCR) was formed in 1892 to build the bridge, linking New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) with New England and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad (NH). A cantilever bridge across Hell Gate was proposed in 1900, but the plan was changed to a through-arch bridge after repeated delays. Construction was overseen by the engineers Gustav Lindenthal, Othmar Ammann, and David B. Steinman and architect Henry Hornbostel. The bridge was dedicated on March 9, 1917, and was the world's longest steel arch bridge until the Bayonne Bridge opened in 1931. Various proposals to modify the bridge in the 1920s were unsuccessful. The bridge was renovated in the 1990s following three decades of deterioration.
The main span is a two-hinged arch flanked by stone towers on either bank of Hell Gate. Northwest of the Hell Gate span, the viaduct is carried on plate-girder spans along the east side of Wards and Randalls Islands. A four-span inverted bowstring truss bridge, measuring , carries the railroad tracks across Little Hell Gate, a former stream between Randalls and Wards Islands. Further north is a , two-span truss bridge across Bronx Kill, a small strait separating Randalls Island from the Bronx. There are also steel-and-concrete approach viaducts in the Bronx and Queens. In addition to the three existing tracks on the bridge, there was a fourth track used by freight trains until the 1970s. The passenger tracks have been electrified since 1918, and the freight tracks also had electrification from 1927 to 1969. The Hell Gate Bridge has received commentary both for its design and its impact on Long Island's commerce, and its design inspired that of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Development
Planning At the end of the 19th century, there was no direct rail connection between New England and New Jersey, nor between Long Island and the rest of the continental United States. Trains traveling between any of these locations had to use barges, which traversed New York City's congested waterways. This spurred efforts to link the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which operated to New Jersey and other states, with the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad (New Haven; NH), which operated to New England. At the time, the NH had a freight terminal in Port Morris, Bronx, where car floats transported railroad cars down the East River to Manhattan or New Jersey. Although the PRR's North River Tunnels and East River Tunnels (completed in 1910) allowed passenger trains to travel between Long Island and New Jersey, no railroad line yet existed between Long Island and New England. Passengers traveling along the modern-day Northeast Corridor had to take a ferry from New Jersey and cross Manhattan to Grand Central Terminal, or vice versa, to continue their journey.
1890s progress The New York Connecting Railroad (NYCR), headed by Oliver W. Barnes, was incorporated in April 1892 to build the bridge. Throughout the 1890s, the New York State Legislature considered various bills that would give the NYCR a franchise to construct a bridge from Long Island to the U.S. mainland, but to no avail.; The NYCR planned for the bridge to carry a line from Manhattan to Brooklyn. In March 1898, U.S. representative John H. Ketcham proposed legislation to allow the NYCR to erect a bridge with two or more tracks across the Bronx Kill, Little Hell Gate, and Hell Gate waterways, connecting the Bronx (on the U.S. mainland) with Randalls Island, Wards Island, and Long Island.; ; Although the federal government of the United States required that the clearance below any bridge across the East River (of which the Hell Gate was part) be above mean high water, the bill permitted a bridge as low as above mean high water.
By the beginning of 1899, the NYCR had received estimates for a bridge connecting Port Morris in the Bronx, Randalls Island, Wards Islands, and Astoria in Long Island. The , bridge was to connect the New York Central Railroad and NH lines in the Bronx with the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and South Brooklyn Railway lines on Long Island. A state senator introduced a bill in February 1899 to incorporate the Wards Island Bridge Company to construct the bridge. The following month, the NYCR's directors held a meeting with New York Central's directors about the construction of the line. The New York Central expressed interest in the planned Hell Gate Bridge, as the railroad intended to use it for both passenger and freight traffic.
Cantilever plan The New York State Legislature passed a bill in April 1900, authorizing the NYCR to build a bridge from the Port Morris station in the Bronx to the Bushwick Junction station in Queens,; and New York governor Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill the next month.; Alfred P. Boller drew up plans for a cantilever bridge. The cantilever span was to measure long, wide, and high; the project, including of approach tracks, was to cost $5.5 million. The cantilever design was selected because it was cheaper than a suspension bridge of the same length. Construction of the bridge was to have begun in September 1900 and be completed in five years. Merchants from Brooklyn supported the bridge, saying it would reduce the cost of delivering goods to that borough. The bridge would also enable passenger trains from upstate New York and New England to travel to New Jersey via the East River and North River tunnels.; Freight traffic would still be required to use car floats, as trains would not be able to fit into the tunnels; the car-float operation would be shifted south to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where trains would be floated across the New York Bay to Greenville, Jersey City.
By October 1900, grading of land for the bridge and its approach viaducts had commenced, and public hearings about the bridge were being hosted. Initially, the PRR did not intend to use the bridge, and the crossing was to connect with the trackage of the LIRR. After the PRR's acquisition of the LIRR in 1900, the PRR began contemplating taking control of the Hell Gate Bridge. Ultimately, in 1901, the PRR and NH bought the NYCR.; This was part of a larger plan to improve rail infrastructure in the New York City area, including a "belt line" for freight (now the Fremont Secondary and Bay Ridge Branch), of which the bridge was to be a part.; ;
Work on the belt line was about to begin by early 1902, and surveys for the proposed bridge's piers had been made by the end of the year. The PRR announced in February 1903 that it would build a double-tracked cantilever bridge, and it drew up a contract to order of steel from United States Steel.; ; The bridge's central span would have been the world's longest cantilever span. The Port Chester Journal described the planned crossing as "an unusual bridge in point of engineering skill". The PRR requested a perpetual franchise for the bridge from the New York City Rapid Transit Commission that June.; PRR vice president Samuel Rea requested in March 1904 that the Rapid Transit Commission approve the bridge and belt line, and charge the PRR rent, so work could commence as soon as possible.; That June, the Rapid Transit Commission granted a perpetual franchise for the bridge and belt line to the NYCR.; The connecting railroad was to pay the New York City government a fee to cross the East River.
Arch plan The PRR hired New York City bridge commissioner Gustav Lindenthal as its consulting structural engineer in 1904. To avoid hospitals on Wards Island, the viaduct needed to curve north immediately upon reaching Wards Island; this ruled out the original cantilever design, which required a straight "anchor span". Instead, Lindenthal first considered a continuous truss bridge, a suspension bridge, and a cantilever bridge across Hell Gate. After rejecting all three designs, Lindenthal studied designs for a spandrel arch and a cantilever arch, both of which would be cheaper than either the suspension or cantilever proposals. The crescent-arch design would be thicker at its crown than at either end, while the spandrel-arch design would be thicker at its ends than at the crown. Although the crescent-arch design required less steel, Lindenthal liked the design of the spandrel arch because it appeared sturdier and because it complemented his designs for masonry towers at either end. Ultimately, he chose a modified form of the spandrel-arch design. His assistant Othmar Ammann wrote that the arch design would allow the bridge to serve as a figurative portal to the Port of New York and New Jersey.
In early 1905, the PRR sent engineers and workers to make borings for the bridge's foundation in Astoria. Work on the bridge's superstructure was delayed because the New York City Board of Aldermen would not approve several aspects of the franchise,; prompting an unsuccessful proposal to remove the aldermen's ability to grant franchises.; Among other things, the aldermen wanted trains on the bridge to use electric power exclusively, provide space for vehicles and pedestrians, and the city to be allowed to add utility wires to the bridge.; New York Governor Frank W. Higgins signed a bill in mid-1905, allowing the start of construction to be postponed by several months. That November, the NYCR asked the Rapid Transit Commission to renew its application for a franchise, citing delays from the Board of Aldermen. The negotiations over the franchise sometimes turned contentious, but the PRR ultimately was promised a franchise from the city in December 1906.; By then, the bridge was planned to fit four tracks, though only two would be used initially. The original two-track plan had been changed after the architects found that the cost of converting a two-track bridge to four tracks would be much higher than the upfront cost of a four-track bridge.
The New York City Board of Estimate approved the NYCR's franchise in February 1907.; Rea submitted plans for the arch bridge in May 1907 to the city's Municipal Art Commission.; ; The arch would have a clear span of , the longest of its kind in the world, and would carry two passenger tracks and two freight tracks. The remainder of the bridge would be a viaduct made of reinforced concrete and steel plate girders. The plans were drawn up by consulting engineer Gustav Lindenthal and architects Palmer and Hornbostel. That June, the Rapid Transit Commission voted to amend the NYCR's franchise.; The franchise allowed the NYCR to construct a viaduct across Wards Island, placing the railroad in possible conflict with the New York State Hospital Commission, which had leased the island from the city, although the hospital commission ultimately did allow engineers to survey the island. The Municipal Art Commission rejected the original bridge plans in July 1907 as "not artistic".;
Land acquisition and finalization of plans