BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Oh is that cool.

Are those waffle-fry looking things that span the bridge lights?

@Pierce I would assume those are utility poles

@dmtroyer: I thought they were coops for carrier pigeons

Plus, is $5 the price to cross? Seems steep -- couldn't you buy a house for that back then?

Edit: oh, I see, penalty. So if you drove too they'd charge you enough to pay for a house, or just about?

Given that driving was a luxury in those days, a step penalty kinda makes sense. Driving wasn't really ubiquitous until the post WWII era IIRC.

I know my Mom (b. 1934) remembers Grandpa driving his first car home. They'd had tractors before that... but the farm was priority. It wasn't until she was a teen that they had an actual car. (She also points out somewhat bitterly that the barn got running water and heat well before the house did....)

It's a $5 penalty if you go faster than walking pace on the bridge. So mind your horse! The bridge was torn down a year before the first Model T, so I'm guessing bridge traffic was mostly horse-drawn. Perhaps a few rich Allegheny City folks had carriages of the horseless variety.

From pghbridges.com, which has more photos too:

YEAR ERECTED / ENGINEER:

1875; removed 1907

ADDITIONAL INFO:

This was the first bridge to link the Point with the opposite shore of either river. It was built so low that it obstructed river traffic . By 1899, it was a major cause of the Secretary of War to require all bridges on Pittsburgh's rivers to be raised higher or replaced.

The Union Bridge was the last wooden river crossing to be built in Pittsburgh. The same year the Union Bridge was completed, the nearby Point Bridge was begun -- primarily of iron. Whereas the Union Bridge put 4 piers in the river and only allowed a 40-foot vertical clearance (both factors leading to its early demise), the Point Bridge had a single 800-foot span which crossed 83 feet above the river.

That the Union Bridge was constructed in wood may seem all the more unusual considering that John Roebling had crossed the Allegheny River at Sixth St with a wire rope suspension bridge less than 20 years earlier. The low clearance and multiple piers showed a lack of foresight, but the wooden construction is also an indication of the caution and skepticism of adopting new materials and technology. Inconsistent quality of early iron and the experimentation of converting wooden trusses to metal led to many failures of iron bridges. Even most of the first iron trusses would be replaced in the early 1900s with steel.

here's some vintage footage of Pittsburgh's dancing cop, vic cianca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbO3yz0P3k

also, i've always liked this one of the mission st bridge

Thanks for the Vic Cianca clip. I'm pretty sure that's the corner of Grant St & 6th Ave, from the vantage point of the Occupy Pittsburgh site. Looks like about 1975, judging by the cars going by.

He had a cameo in Flashdance, too.

erok-mission st bridge pic and sign very cool!

1903- They were tougher over at the 16th street bridge, $10!

Traffic calming works for pedestrians too – 1923

The real deal – 1950

Nice. I love these pictures but I was too lazy/busy to read anything about it so I did this: Qwiki - Union Bridge

I don't know where I got this site, so I apologize if this is a duplicate:

http://www.shorpy.com/search/node/pittsburgh

Some great shots of Pittsburgh from the early 1900's. Some of the pictures have comments on them about the history or what happened to the building.

@flyS564 Qwiki - Union Bridge

When I clicked it it had a message Greg created this Qwiki in minutes. You can too, it's easy! and the creation: a blank grey screen.

Looks like it's all new magical code that probably doesn't work too well in Internet Explorer but, I'm not sure. I logged out and tested it and it worked so the link is correct.

Worked for me, on Firefox.