Time Span

The Walkway Over the Hudson

by Lawrence C. Swayne and photographs by David Rocco, September 25, 2009

For nearly a quarter of a century after it caught fire in 1974, the abandoned Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge stood silently, a once proud emblem of the Industrial Revolution and manufacturing prosperity in the Hudson Valley. Considered a technological marvel when it opened in 1888, it was the longest bridge in the world and the only bridge across the Hudson River between New York and Albany until 1924. As such, the “Great Connector” linked local farm produce and Pennsylvania coal with New England cities and factories. Although primarily used for freight, the bridge also conveyed trolleys and passenger cars during its early years, including the elegant Federal Express train from Boston to Washington, DC. During World War II, as many as 3,500 rail cars per day traversed the bridge, transporting soldiers and war materials to eastern seaports. Fittingly, after a complete makeover, the bridge will be reopened this month as the longest pedestrian/bicycle bridge in the world and a symbol of revitalization within the region as well as America’s 21st-century commitment to environmental and historical preservation.

Notwithstanding its age and 25 years of neglect, the bridge remains structurally sound, a testament to the skill of its designers, Charles Macdonald and Thomas Curtis Clarke. It consists of three cantilever spans interspersed with two truss spans, supported by steel towers and four 10-story, concrete-filled timber caissons resting in nearly 140 feet of water. Stretching from anchorage pier to anchorage pier, the bridge is 3,094 feet long. The 525-foot cantilever spans remain the longest and heaviest in the world, providing 160 feet of clearance above the river, while the bridge surface soars to a dizzying height of 212 feet. The original construction was completed by the Union Bridge Company of New York under the supervision of Chief Engineer John F. O’Rourke at a cost of $3.6 million.

Following World War II, railroad traffic over the bridge progressively diminished, thanks to the rise of airfreight, federal highway subsidization, and the consolidation and rerouting of rail traffic to the modern railroad yard in Selkirk, seven miles south of Albany. After the fire of May 8, 1974, burned railroad ties, twisted track, warped steel girders, and popped rivets, the bridge was deserted. While preservationists struggled to raise money for proposed grandiose schemes that included constructing shops, restaurants, condo, hotels, docks with glass-walled elevators, and even a bungee-jumping platform, the bridge appeared fated for continued gradual decline and demolition, despite being added to the National Historic Register in 1979.

In 1992 a grassroots coalition, Walkway Over the Hudson, became incorporated as a not-for-profit organization for the avowed purpose of preserving the bridge by converting it to a linear park for pedestrians and bicyclists and providing for its ongoing stewardship. Ironically, these goals belatedly fulfill the mandates of two state bills passed in 1891 and 1893 to open the bridge to pedestrian traffic (a judicial ruling in 1920 declined to implement this requirement, citing legal and safety issues). Although Walkway Over the Hudson assumed control of the bridge in 1995, it was not until 2007, when the organization secured a $2.1 million gift from the Dyson Foundation, that sustained momentum was created. Subsequent donations from public and private sources including the State of New York and Scenic Hudson raised more than 70 percent of the total estimated $38.8 million cost of the project by April 2009, and by July 23 of this year construction had been 75 percent completed.