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.
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Fort Duquesne Bridge
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Smithfield Street Bridge
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.
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Panther on the Panther Hollow Bridge
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.
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Fort Pitt Bridge
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.
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Panhandle Bridge
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.
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The Smithfield Street Bridge
Seen from Mount Washington, the graceful Pauli truss of the the Smithfield Street Bridge leaps over the Monongahela.
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Gateway to the Smithfield Street Bridge
[Updated, with many thanks to “Mercator” for a helpful comment.] The 1915 gateway of the 1883 Smithfield Street Bridge, as seen through the snow of a January afternoon. The Pauli or lenticular truss is unusual; in Pittsburgh, with its more than 500 bridges, this is the only one. The oldest steel bridge in the United States, this was designed by Gustav Lindenthal, who knew a thing or two about bridges. The original span was half the width; for the better part of the twentieth century, the bridge carried automobiles on the downstream side and streetcars on the upstream side. In the 1990s (after the streetcars had been rerouted into the subway by way of the Panhandle Bridge), the bridge was refurbished and painted in bright Victorian colors to replace the utilitarian gray that had coated it for decades. This is our most popular bridge for pedestrians; it connects downtown with the shops and restaurants at Station Square.
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The Smithfield Street Bridge
Two pictures of the Smithfield Street Bridge, both taken with the same toy digital camera.
Lenticular or “scissors” trusses (sometimes called “Pauli trusses”) are rare on bridges anywhere. This is one of the great examples in the United States. The bridge was designed by one of the great names in bridge-building, Gustav Lindenthal. Until the 1980s, the dowstream side carried automobiles and the upstream side streetcars, but the streetcars were rerouted over the Panhandle Bridge when the subway downtown opened. After a major restoration, the bridge now caries automotive traffic on both sides.
If you are a bridge lover, Pittsburgh is the one city you must see before you die. There are more bridges here than in any other city anywhere, and for a considerable time there was actually a government body here charged with seeing that new bridges were not only practical and safe, but aesthetically beautiful as well. An excellent introduction to the bridges of Pittsburgh is at pghbridges.com.