The Ninth Street Bridge, now named for our world-changing naturalist Rachel Carson, is the third of the Three Sisters going by street numbers, but it was the first to be built. Here we see it during the recent Three Rivers Arts Festival, when the artists’ market spilled outward across its entire length.
It is old Pa Pitt’s belief that every work of architecture or engineering ought to bear a permanent record of all the information a future historian will want.
An album of views of the middle of the Three Sisters, taken on a cloudy day and a sunny day.
The Three Sisters bridges—Sixth Street, Seventh Street, and Ninth Street—were built between 1925 and 1928 after the War Department determined that the existing bridges over the Allegheny were too low and impeded navigation. As engineering feats they are technically interesting: they had to be made self-anchoring to avoid tearing out huge chunks of valuable property downtown. As architecture they are memorable, and not just because this is the only place in the world where you can see three identical suspension bridges side by side. The Sixth Street Bridge, now named for Pirates star and philanthropist Roberto Clemente, was the most beautiful steel bridge built in America in 1928.
On baseball days the bridge is closed to motor vehicles, which allows a gentleman in a powdered wig to stand right in the middle of it with his Kodak.
The architect was Stanley Roush, the king of public works in Pittsburgh at the time. You may think Father Pitt was being a bit hyperbolic in calling this the most beautiful steel bridge of 1928, but he was merely reading off its credentials.
This year the Artists’ Market has spread from Fort Duquesne Boulevard all the way along the Rachel Carson or Ninth Street Bridge. The extra room makes the festival feel even more open and inviting.
The 40th Street or Washington Crossing Bridge, in a picture taken a year and a half ago but somehow lost in the debris until now. In the right foreground is the Bair & Gazzam Building.
The Three Sisters bridges have a new lighting scheme. Above, the Roberto Clemente or Sixth Street Bridge; below, the Andy Warhol or Seventh Street Bridge.
Demolition of a warehouse for a new skyscraper apartment building has temporarily made these views of the Sixteenth Street Bridge from Penn Avenue possible, at least for a photographer who is willing to stand on his toes and hold the camera at arm’s length above the construction fence.
