Riverside Avenue Bridge
Photos
General Elevation View
Photo taken by Historic American Engineering Record
View photos at Library of Congress
BH Photo #153647
Description
* Historic structure was originally a single span but subsequent rebuilds and reinforcements and supplemental piers.Facts
- Overview
- Whipple through truss bridge over Northeast Corridor (Metro North Railroad) on Riverside Avenue
- Location
- Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built 1871 as part of a six-span bridge over the Housatonic River; relocated here 1895; reconstructed 1989
- Builders
- - Birmingham Iron Foundry (Probable fabricator of the cast iron - per Chester Gehman, based on the text in Luke's reference)
- Francis C. Lowthorp (Trenton, NJ Design/Engineer)
- George Everett (Allentown, PA - Superintendent of the ironwork)
- New Jersey Steel & Iron Co. of Trenton, New Jersey (Probable fabricator of the wrought iron based on the description in Luke's reference 'Tension Rods from Trenton, NJ' - a Cooper-Hewitt subsidiary formally known as Trenton Iron Works/Co. and subsequently a division of American Bridge Co. - per Art S.)
- Railroads
- - Amtrak (AMTK)
- Metro-North Commuter Railroad (MNCW)
- New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (NH)
- Northeast Corridor (NEC)
- Penn Central Railroad (PC)
- Design
- Cast iron compression member and wrought iron tension member, vertical endpost, Whipple through truss, retrofitted with load-bearing steel stringers
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 69.9 ft.
Total length: 170.9 ft.
Deck width: 20.7 ft.
- Recognition
- Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on August 29, 1977
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +41.03146, -73.58808 (decimal degrees)
41°01'53" N, 73°35'17" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 18/618690/4543209 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Stamford
- Average daily traffic (as of 2018)
- 7,714
- Inventory numbers
- NRHP 77001391 (National Register of Historic Places reference number)
CT 5808 (Connecticut bridge number)
BH 43968 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of September 2018)
- Overall condition: Good
Superstructure condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 75 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- June 18, 2021: Updated by Art Suckewer: added an explanation to the 'three span' listing
- June 18, 2020: New photos from Patrick Gurwell
- January 24, 2016: Updated by Art Suckewer: Removed Keystone Bridge Co. as fabricator based on information found
- August 26, 2013: New Street View added by James McCray
- January 30, 2010: Added by James Baughn
Related Bridges
- NH - Devon Bridge (1871) (Parts reused from)
Sources
- Wikipedia
- HAER CT-13 - Riverside Avenue Bridge, Riverside Avenue over Northeast Corridor Railroad , Greenwich, Fairfield County, CT
- HAER CT-11 - Northeast Railroad Corridor, Amtrak Route between New York/Connecticut & Connec, New Haven, New Haven County, CT
- Historicbridges.org - by Nathan Holth
- James McCray - jamesinslocomb [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Art Suckewer - Asuckewer [at] knite [dot] com
- Patrick Gurwell - pgurwell [at] gmail [dot] com
Comments
I came across the earlier discussion concerning the fabricator of the Riverside Avenue bridge and my two-cents worth is this:
"Connecticut-An Inventory of Historic Engineering Sites" (SIA, 1981) and "Connecticut's Historic Highway Bridges" (CT DOT, 1991) both state that the Keystone Bridge Company was the fabricator. The Birmingham Iron Foundry would have supplied tha cast-iron compression members, and the wrought-iron tension mambers came from Trenton. Keystone also built what is now the Pine Creek Park Bridge the following year. The Berlin Iron Bridge Co. did not start building bridges until 1879, so it was not a contender. If Keystone was not the builder, then the error has been repeated down through the years.
Luke,
The two obvious choices are Cooper-Hewitt (Trenton Iron Co.) and John A. Roebling and Sons.
The dark horse is Corwin Iron Works out of Lambertville (just up the river) as he regularly worked with Lowthrop.
Trenton Locomotive and Machine Works, maker of the Hamden road Fink, is a possibility but I suspect they were just a division of Cooper-Hewitt.
These are just my initial thoughts. If time permits, I'll do some research.
Regards,
Art S.
A likely candidate would be the Birmingham Iron Foundry of Birmingham (now Derby) CT
Art, according to https://books.google.com/books?id=t1dFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA101&dq=l...
a company from Birmingham CT made the frame and a company from Trenton NJ made the tension rods.
Any guesses?
The Riverside Bridge was not made by the Keystone Bridge Co.
This attribution, which seems to stem from HAER, never made sense to me. Both before and after the date of the bridge's manufacture, Keystone and their chief engineer Linville were strong proponents of wrought iron compression members and were using the Linville patents and Keystone columns.
In a letter published on page 23 of the July 9, 1887 edition of Engineering News, Lowthorp states that Keystone had submitted a competing bid for the bridge's manufacture. https://books.google.com/books?id=syhKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA23&lpg=P...
I theorize that the bridge may have been made by Lowthorp's company but I suspect that fabrication was done by either Peter Cooper's Trenton Iron Works or William Corwin's Lambertville Iron Works. At this time, I have no proof of either.
It is also possible that Keystone erected the bridge at its present location.
Regards,
Art S.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ct/fairfield/riverside-avenue/
Chet,
It's a self perpetuating error.
To the best of my knowledge, Keystone never worked with Lowthorp and the bridge conforms to Lowthorp's patent, not Linville's. Luke's reference loosely sites the builders. The NJ fabricator is likely NJ Iron & Steel: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54eb7fcce4b0a4e937b40...
Regards,
Art S.