Manhattan Bridge
Coordinates: 40 ° 42 ′ 26 ″ N , 73 ° 59 ′ 27 ″ W.
| Manhattan Bridge | ||
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| use | Railway and road bridge | |
| Crossing of | East River | |
| place | New York City | |
| Entertained by | New York City Department of Transportation | |
| construction | Suspension bridge | |
| overall length | 2089 m | |
| Longest span | 448 m | |
| completion | July 1910 | |
| opening | December 31, 1909 | |
| planner | Leon S. Moisseiff | |
| location | ||
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The Manhattan Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City that crosses the East River and connects the two districts of Lower Manhattan ( Chinatown ) and Brooklyn . The bridge, which opened on December 31, 1909 but was not completed until a few months later, was the last of the three suspension bridges built over the East River after the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge . On its two levels, it now has a total of four tracks on the New York City subway , seven lanes for vehicle traffic, as well as a footpath and a bike path.
description
The Manhattan Bridge, like its predecessor, from steel built pylons and track support, but seems much lighter, which is their appearance only in part to the architectural design. Its towers, which consist of only two vertical pillars, are each combined into a portal by a neo-Gothic pointed arch and a traverse . In the side view, the towers are no wider than the vertical pillars, which led to their designation as two-dimensional towers . On the crossbars there are rather inconspicuous housings for the suspension cables, on which, for purely architectural reasons, round shapes reminiscent of pine cones have been arranged, which otherwise have no function. Four suspension cables run over the towers, to which the track girder is attached with vertical hangers. The anchoring of the suspension cables is located in large structures at the beginning of the ramps that extend far into the urban areas and that had to be kept flat because of the railway tracks.
The bridge has two levels: on the upper level there are two lanes for motor vehicles on the outside. The lower level includes in the middle three car lanes, and two disposed on the edges of underground -Gleise for the lines 
, 
, 
and 
and outermost a foot and a cycle track. The three lanes on the lower level can be released for different directions as required.
The Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge are the only two bridges over the East River in New York City that still have both rail and road traffic.
The bridge is used daily by 320,000 subway passengers, 75,000 motor vehicles and 3,000 cyclists and pedestrians.
The beginning of the access ramp in Manhattan at the intersection of Bowery and Canal Street has been marked since 1916 by an archway framed by colonnades , which was designed by the architects Carrère and Hastings . The 22 m high archway is based on the Porte Saint-Denis in Paris, the elliptical colonnade was inspired by St. Peter's Square in the Vatican . On the Brooklyn side there were two allegories depicting the two districts, but they had to give way to traffic and have since been displayed in the Brooklyn Museum.
The neighborhood by the access ramps on the Brooklyn side has been named Dumbo - Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass .
Technical details
_Manhattan_Bridge_(3586432925).jpg)
The bridge is 1856 m (6090 ft) long including the access ramps, according to other information 2089 m (6855 ft). The length from back anchor to back anchor is 890 m (2920 ft). Its pylons are 98 m (322 ft) high. The wingspan is 448 m (1470 ft). The four suspension cables with a diameter of around 53 cm are parallel wire ropes produced using the air-jet process . At the time of opening they were the strongest suspension cables in the world. A total of 628 hangers are attached to them, which support the 36.6 m wide bridge deck. For the hangers, two wire ropes were run side by side over the fastening sleeves on the suspension cables, so that four ropes each form a hanger.
For the bridge, Leon S. Moisseiff first applied the deflection theory , which goes back to Joseph Melan , which assumed that floating structures with a large dead weight have a self-stabilizing effect. Then it was possible to plan a much lighter construction for the bridge, which explains the two-dimensional towers , which should be flexible in the longitudinal direction.
This construction method, which is still in its infancy, and the arrangement of the trains on the outside led to considerable twisting of the bridge girder, which later required extensive renovation measures.
history
A first design for a suspension bridge was made in 1899 by Richard S. Buck. A newly elected city government appointed Gustav Lindenthal Commissioner of Bridges in 1902 , who presented his own draft, which was not accepted. His second design for a chain bridge was hotly debated, but after the election of George B. McClellan, Jr. as Lord Mayor and the ousting of Lindenthal in 1904, it was closed. The new Bridge Commissioner George E. Best appointed Othniel Foster Nichols as Chief Engineer for the new bridge.
He chose a design by Leon S. Moisseiff , an employee of the Bridge Department, for a suspension bridge that was planned for the first time according to the deflection theory and that could be significantly lighter than the previous bridges. Its plan was two subway tracks on the outer sides of the bridge that is arranged directly under the four support cables Warren trusses ( Warren truss ) were framed as a stiffening of the bridge deck. The Warren trusses were also first used in a suspension bridge. Two tram tracks were planned on a further level above the subway tracks. In the middle between the tracks there were four lanes for road traffic. Ralph Modjeski was appointed Consulting Engineer by OF Nichols during the construction period, who also examined the work on the Manhattan Bridge. The suspension cables were spun in a record time of only four months.
On December 31, 1909 , Mayor McClellan's last day of work, the inauguration took place, although the subway and tram tracks were still missing after responsibility for them had been transferred from the Bridge Department to a transportation department. The first footpath across the bridge was opened in July 1910 and the first trains crossed the bridge in September 1912. The total cost of the bridge was $ 31 million.
The subway traffic arranged on the outside of the bridge, with its trains becoming longer and heavier over time, caused vibrations and twisting that could reach 2.4 m (8 ft) if two trains passed simultaneously across the opposite ends of the bridge. When the tram tracks were replaced by lanes in the 1940s, extensive repair and reinforcement measures had to be carried out. During an inspection carried out in 1978, extensive cracks and corrosion damage were found, which led to a complete closure of the bridge. In 1982, a $ 834 million renovation program began, replacing and strengthening many parts of the bridge. In particular, girders were installed to make the bridge more rigid, the suspension cables were re-sheathed and all hangers were replaced. The program should be completed in summer 2013. In June 2001, a new footpath was opened on the southern side of the bridge, which was also used by cyclists until the inauguration of a new cycle path on the north side in summer 2004.
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , the bridge was closed to all traffic except emergency services for a week . Subsequently, to reduce traffic congestion in Manhattan, HOV restrictions were introduced; This means that only cars with at least two occupants were permitted.
In 2009, the year of its centenary, the Manhattan Bridge was named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers .
Subway tracks on the New York City subway
When the bridge opened, there were no connections to any other subway lines. The Manhattan Bridge Three Cent Line (a streetcar company) began work on the subway tracks in 1912 until the bridge was connected to the BRT (Brooklyn Rapid Transit) (later BMT, Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation ) network in 1915 . From 1915 until the end of 1929 trams operated on the lower level of the bridge.
As a result, the four subway routes fell under the control of the BRT , which already had two other routes, one on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge . In addition, the BRT also owned three double-track tunnels that ran under the East River ( Montague Street Tunnel , 14th Street Tunnel and 60th Street Tunnel ). The Brooklyn end of the bridge has always been connected to the Fourth Avenue Line's four-track stretch . On the Manhattan side, however, a lot has changed. When the bridge was built, the northern tracks still connected the Manhattan Bridge Line with the Broadway-BMT Line . Today this is done by the southern tracks, which at the time curved south to join the Nassau Street Line . This route is no longer used today. Since the opening of the Chrystie Street Connection on November 26, 1967, the northern tracks have connected this route with the Manhattan Bridge .
The subway trains running on the right and left of the bridge caused the bridge to sway. Due to a lack of maintenance work by the New York City Department of Transportation , the route had to be closed several times in the past. Because the northern tracks were used more, they had to be closed for the first time from 1986 to 1988. The southern tracks were closed in 1988 and 1990, when it was assumed that they would be temporarily closed, but this lasted until July 22, 2001. The northern tracks were closed in 1995 during less busy periods, but in 2001 no trains were allowed to run there. It wasn't until February 22, 2004 that both sides were reopened.
Movie and TV
The Manhattan Bridge has also been used as a backdrop in some movies:
- Sergio Leone's gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America (Noodles walks through an alley at a young age, with the bridge as a background, can also be seen on the DVD cover, among other things)
- Roland Emmerich's science fiction film Independence Day (approach of an alien ship to New York)
- Tony Scott's thriller The Abduction of the Underground Pelham 123 (final scene)
The Manhattan Bridge can be seen on the following movie posters:
- Sergio Leone's gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America
- Joseph Kosinski's science fiction film Oblivion
- Mark Mann's film Threesome
- 4.3.2.1 by Noel Clarke and Mark Davis
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Manhattan Bridge - Historic Overview
- ↑ a b c Manhattan Bridge on the New York City Department of Transportation - DOT website
- ↑ a b c d e Manhattan Bridge on the website of the American Society for Civil Engineering - ASCE, Metropolitan Section
- ↑ a b Manhattan Bridge ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the NYC Bridge Centennial Commission website
- ↑ Manhattan Bridge piers time-lapse video of the bridge's movements. On Youtube
- ↑ See George B. McClellan, Jr. in Wikipedia
- ↑ See Warren Truss in the English Wikipedia
- ↑ Manhattan Bridge on Transportation Alternatives - Description of the pedestrian and bike paths
- ↑ Manhattan Bridge on nycsubway.org
- ↑ The Plakateur: Manhattan Bridge
