This bridge on one of the bridle paths in Schenley Park is actually made of concrete covered with tufa (a kind of underwater limestone formation), but it looks as if it simply grew over the Phipps Creek. It was built in 1908, and over the century since has had ample time to grow a lush coating of moss.
The Tenth Street Bridge reflected in the unusually placid Monongahela.
Foreground to background:
Liberty Bridge,
Panhandle Bridge (trolleys only),
Smithfield Street Bridge,
Fort Pitt Bridge.
The Fortieth Street or Washington Crossing Bridge, seen through the last remnants of autumn color along the Allegheny.
The companion to the Fort Pitt Bridge, the Fort Duquesne Bridge crosses the Allegheny, giving the Point a pair of golden wings. The picture was taken with a Kodak Retinette.
A view from the sidewalk shows the intricacy of Gustav Lindenthal’s famous Pauli truss. Taken with a Kodak Retinette.
The Smithfield Street Bridge is just across Carson Street from the Station Square subway station.
Giuseppe Moretti, Pittsburgh’s best and most consistently employed sculptor, gave us the four stalking panthers that frame the Panther Hollow Bridge behind Phipps Conservatory in Oakland. You can see his signature below this panther’s right hind leg.
The double-decker Fort Pitt Bridge over the Monongahela enters downtown Pittsburgh from the Fort Pitt Tunnels, giving first-time visitors a shockingly spectacular introduction to the skyline as they arrive from the airport. The bridge itself matches the Fort Duquesne Bridge over the Allegheny, framing the Point with bright yellow arches.
A 47L train heads across the Panhandle Bridge as it sets out on its long journey to the edge of the earth, which in this case is Library, at the southern border of Allegheny County. In rush hour, all routes except 52 (the Allentown Trolley) run two-car trains like this one, made up in this case of two CAF cars. The rear car acts as a trailer; it has no driver, and its doors open only at high-level platforms with fare booths, not at street-level stops.
The Panhandle Bridge was originally a railroad bridge; in the 1980s the streetcars from the South Hills were diverted over it (they used to come in by the Smithfield Street Bridge) when the new subway opened. (Part of the subway reused the old railroad tunnel that had taken trains from the Panhandle Bridge to Penn Station.) Since the cars come out of the Mount Washington tunnel right at the end of the Smithfield Street Bridge, diverting them to the next bridge over required an extraordinarily sharp curve at Station Square. But sharp curves are just one of the challenges a trolley has to pass before it’s good enough for Pittsburgh.
Seen from Mount Washington, the graceful Pauli truss of the the Smithfield Street Bridge leaps over the Monongahela.
