The Washington Bridge is a arch bridge over the Harlem River in New York City between the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. The crossing, opened in 1888, connects 181st Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights, Manhattan, with University Avenue in Morris Heights, Bronx. It carries six lanes of traffic, as well as sidewalks on both sides. Ramps at either end of the bridge connect to the Trans-Manhattan Expressway and the Cross Bronx Expressway, and serves as a connector/highway to the highway itself.
The two-hinged arch bridge was designed by Charles C. Schneider and Wilhelm Hildenbrand, with modifications to the design made by the Union Bridge Company, William J. McAlpine, Theodore Cooper, and DeLemos & Cordes, with Edward H. Kendall as consulting architect. The bridge features steel-arch construction with two main arches and masonry approaches. The bridge is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation. It once carried U.S. Route 1, which since 1963 has traveled over the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. The Washington Bridge is designated as a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Washington Bridge had been planned since the 1860s, but progress was delayed for two decades due to various disputes. The final plan was chosen and modified after an architectural design competition in 1885, and work began in July 1886. Pedestrians with passes could use the bridge by December 1888, and the Washington Bridge was being used for regular travel by the next year, though an official opening ceremony never took place. At the Washington Bridge's completion, it was widely praised as an architectural accomplishment of New York City. Automobiles were able to use the bridge after 1906. After the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River, connecting to New Jersey in the west, was completed in 1931, the Harlem River crossing served as a connector for traffic between New Jersey and the Bronx. The Alexander Hamilton Bridge was completed in 1963, diverting traffic from the Washington Bridge. After a period of deterioration, the Washington Bridge underwent reconstruction from 1989 to 1993.
Description The Washington Bridge is an arch bridge over the Harlem River, composed of two large steel arches flanked at either end by masonry viaducts.; . Its total length, including approaches, is . It connects West 181st Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan, with University Avenue in Morris Heights, Bronx. Within the bridge's vicinity, the Harlem River is in a valley between Manhattan to the west and the Bronx to the east; the terrain on the Manhattan side is steeper than on the Bronx side.
The bridge was designed by Charles C. Schneider and Wilhelm Hildenbrand, with Edward H. Kendall as consulting architect. Modifications to the design were made by the Union Bridge Company, chief engineer William J. McAlpine, consulting engineer Theodore Cooper, and cornice architect DeLemos & Cordes. Alfred Noble and John Bogart served as resident engineers while Frank A. Leers was engineer for the construction contractors. The construction of the bridge was subcontracted to steel contractor Passaic Rolling Mill Company and masonry contractor Myles Tierney. Work was subcontracted to Anderson and Barr for caissons, John Peirce for granite, Barber Asphalt Paving Company for the roadway, and Spang Steel Works and Union Mills for the steel production. The granite was from Maine, while the light gray gneiss ashlar was from Connecticut. Gneiss from nearby quarries and excavations was also used, as was Rosendale cement. Over of steel was used for the bridge's arches.
The bridge carries six lanes of traffic and a sidewalk on each side. The roadway was originally made of granite, subsequently repaved in asphalt, while the sidewalks were made of bluestone. As built, the bridge deck was wide, with a roadway of and sidewalks of . The modern crossing contains sidewalks of , as well as two roadways separated by a median. The Washington Bridge carries the bus routes, operated by New York City Bus. In 2016, the New York City Department of Transportation, which operates and maintains the bridge, reported an average daily traffic volume in both directions of 57,647. The peak ADT over the Washington Bridge was 68,075 vehicles in 2000.
Over-river span The two main steel arches of the bridge are each long. The western arch traverses the Harlem River as well as Bridge Park on the Bronx shore. The eastern arch crosses the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line and the Major Deegan Expressway (carrying Interstate 87). The arches provide of vertical clearance at Mean High Water.
Arches
Each of the arches consists of six large girders made of riveted steel beams, with heavy chords at the top and bottom. The ribs are thick, with minor variations because of the varying thicknesses of the plates that were used in the beams. The ribs run parallel to each other and are spaced apart. The ribs are riveted together with both diagonal and perpendicular bracing. This made the Washington Bridge the first in the United States where the ribs of the arch were made of plate girders. Because the ribs were riveted, the bridge was classified by architectural writer Carl W. Condit as a two-hinged arch bridge.
Unusually for arch bridges of the time, the deck lacks diagonal bracing, instead being supported by beams running horizontally and vertically. The beams, spaced about apart, are built of plates and angles. Posts extend from the extrados of the ribs, supporting the floor beams. The posts are rigidly attached to the ribs' flanges and the horizontal and vertical beams; they are connected and braced transversely.
The sides of the deck are flanked by cornices with denticulation and modillions. There are shield and branch motifs below the cornice, as well as decorative balustrade poles with shell and seahorse motifs above each shield. The balustrade contains egg-and-dart motifs on their top rails, as well as alternating Ionic columns and decorative torch-and-scroll medallions between each decorative pole. Chain-link fences run atop the original barricades.
Piers The arches sit between three main piers: one on either end, adjacent to the masonry approach viaducts, as well as one between the arches on the eastern bank of the Harlem River. At the skewbacks, from which the arches rise, the main piers are wide and long. The sections of piers above each skewback are made of vertical "cells" and rise nearly to the bottom of the bridge deck. The interiors of the piers are made of rubble masonry, although the center and eastern piers also contain concrete. The sections of piers below each skewback are solid, made of concrete, and clad with ashlar.
A balustrade of solid granite sits atop each of the piers, surrounding balconies that protrude from either sidewalk. The balconies atop each pier once supported illuminated seating areas with lampposts made of cast bronze.
Approaches
The masonry approach viaducts at either end both contain three semicircular concrete arches, clad in granite and gneiss ashlar. There is a seventh, elliptical arch over Undercliff Avenue on the Bronx side of the bridge. The centers for all seven arches were all erected simultaneously to provide structural stability. There are voussoirs running along the tops of these arches, with keystones at the center of each arch. Each of the semicircular arches are wide and are carried by piers that are thick. The tops of the viaducts contain granite balustrades with circular openings, which rest atop short granite cornices with brackets. When the bridge opened, the circular openings of these balustrades included fleur-de-lis ornaments made in bronze. The approach viaducts also originally contained lampposts made of cast bronze.
At the western end of the Washington Bridge, there are ramps to and from the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, carrying Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 9. The approach viaduct crosses Harlem River Drive, which runs along the western shore of the Harlem River. The bridge's main roadway continues west to the intersection of 181st Street and Amsterdam Avenue (formerly Tenth Avenue), adjacent to Highbridge Park. The distance between the end of the masonry approach and the intersection with Amsterdam Avenue is . The intersection is higher than the bridge deck, necessitating a 3.5 percent upward slope. The entrance to the northern sidewalk is in McNally Plaza, slightly northeast of the intersection of 181st Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The entrance to the southern sidewalk is from the southeastern corner of the intersection.
The Bronx approach viaduct contains three semicircular arches, as well as an elliptical arch with a width of . Along this approach, a grass median strip once separated the westbound and eastbound lanes. In the original design, there was a granite staircase with bluestone steps, which led to Boscobel Place just south of the bridge. At the eastern end of the bridge, the westbound and eastbound lanes diverge from each other and merge with the Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95 and US 1). A pair of entrance and exit ramps lead to an interchange with University Avenue; the eastbound exit also provides access to Edward L. Grant Highway, which diverges from University Avenue to the south. The entrance and exit ramps to University Avenue also carry the northern and southern sidewalks; the southern sidewalk abuts Bridge Playground. There was originally a 3.5 percent downward slope from the deck to the bridge terminus at University Avenue. The distance between the end of the masonry approach and the intersection with University Avenue was .
History Planning Early plans Planning for a bridge carrying pedestrians and transit between the West Bronx and Washington Heights, in Upper Manhattan, dates to the 1860s.; . The nearby High Bridge, which had been completed in the 1840s, carried the Croton Aqueduct. A crossing slightly north of the High Bridge was first proposed by Andrew Haswell Green, a member of Central Park's board of commissioners. The board had been tasked, in 1868, with laying out streets in Upper Manhattan. Green had suggested constructing bridges and tunnels across the Harlem River between Manhattan and the Bronx, the latter of which was then in Westchester County. He specifically desired a suspension bridge to be built about north of the High Bridge, with a deck slightly higher than the High Bridge's. That crossing was authorized by the New York State Legislature in 1869, and the New York City Department of Public Parks received authority to plan and build bridges across the Harlem River the next year. No further progress was made for several years. The city contemplated widening the High Bridge so that horse-drawn carriages could use that bridge, but ultimately decided against it.