The OTHER Bridge!

In addition to the old Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge now transformed to the Walkway over the Hudson, which I showed you photographs of, one-half mile south of it is the Mid-Hudson Bridge.  I had wanted to photograph this bridge as well as the other one.  It was easier to get underneath this bridge, which I did on the day we were leaving.  This bridge is a Suspension Bridge with two giant cables which are anchored at each end, and then go up to the tops of the towers, before swooping down in a parabolic curve at the center of the bridge then back up and over the tower and down to the other side.  There are smaller cables that go from the giant suspension cables, straight down to connect to the steel structure on which the roadway is built.

From a distance the bridge looks so delicate as if it was made from threads.  Up close you can see that it is a massive structure.  This bridge hardly looks 94 years old!  It seems more modern than that.

Each suspension cable is firmly anchored in the massive structure in he ground on each end.  It is impossible to even think of the incredible loads that are on these cables!  Here, the cable comes out of its anchor an runs through a fitting before it begins its sweep up to one of the towers.

This is the anchor on the west side of the river.  Look at those massive granite blocks.  I am not sure if inside them is poured concrete, and look how far back it goes into the trees.  In addition to anchoring the suspension cables, it has to hold up one end of the roadway structure.

This is a view of the entrance to the bridge on the west side of the Hudson river.  Look at the complex structural beams that look like the Erector set that I had as a child, with all the criss cross members.  What is really cool is that they built a walkway on the left here so you can walk all the way across the bridge!  It is a long walk - the bridge is 3000 feet long and the clearance under the bridge is 135 feet above the river.  I walked out maybe 500 feet, so I could get those nice views of the railroad bridge.

I love the beauty of this image, with the bridge structure looking so delicate, and then the mountains in the distance, which are called the Hudson Highlands, and that is in the vicinity of West Point.  Construction of this bridge began in 1925.  Caissons weighing 66,000 tons were sunk into the riverbed, and dirt was removed by crews working in a pressurized environment and then the concrete bases were poured.  The 315 foot-tall Gothic steel towers were constructed in April 1929.  Then Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor attended the opening ceremony on August 25, 1930 and the bridge was named for him.