After years of work and hurculean efforts by all those involved, the Walkway over the Hudson opened last night. The original structure, the Poughkeepsie Rail Road bridge was built in 1888 to to carry rail traffic over the Hudson, mostly coal trains on their way from the Pennsylvania coal fields to New England factories during the industrial revolution. When it was constructed, it was the only fixed Hudson River crossing south of Albany, and was considered quite the engineering accomplishment.
Poughkeepsie Rail Road Bridge (Library of Congress hhh.ny1625)
On a late spring day in 1974, the east end of the bridge caught fire. I remember my aunt, who lives in Poughkeepsie, calling and telling my mother about it. They both were quite shocked.
From that day, the bridge changed hands many times, falling further and further into disrepair. There were talks demolishing it in the early 1990’s, which would have been a shame. In 1998, a group came together to raise the 38 million dollars to convert it to a walkway. It is an excellent addition to this area’s tourist attractions of which there are many. One local congressman has said it will be like the Eiffel Tower. Perhaps that might be overstating it slightly since Poughkeepsie is not Paris, but the sentiment is correct.
We are planning a walk across sometime soon, when the weather is a little nicer, perhapes next weekend when the autumn colors are peaking.
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We’re waiting to go as well. I’m really close to it and there are tons of people on there. They closed off a whole road near the entrance on the Poughkeepsie side just because there were so many people. It was crazy around there all weekend.
I do some work for the company that did the survey work for the project and got to see some cool shots of the slabs going down and the sites from up there. Can’t wait to go!
Paul,
VERY cool structure. I inspected and designed railroad bridges for a few years early in my career and they are very impressive structures. They were built with such amazing load capacities to carry freight trains that they make great pedestrian structures after all these years. Even with years of corrosion they can carry significant loads. I look forward to seeing photos if/when you visit!
We went last Sunday morning, early because I knew it would be crowded later on. We all walked out to the half way point and walked back. I’ll have to get the pictures off the camera and do a post. All I can really say is what a view!
I am glad they fixed this up, it was either that or tear it down, which would have been a real shame. It is amazing to see the work that went into building the bridge. It is held together with hot rivets, which I guess in 1880 was the best way available. I am going to take a walk under the bridge and get some pictures of the steel work.