Father Pitt

Category: Bridges

  • Construction on the Rachel Carson Bridge

    The Ninth Street or Rachel Carson Bridge is closed for construction for a while. Here we see it in early-morning light.

  • Panhandle Bridge

    An outbound Blue Line car heads toward Station Square on the Panhandle Bridge, an old railroad bridge repurposed, along with the railroad tunnel under downtown, for the subway in the 1980s.

  • Hot Metal Bridge

    This rehabilitated pair of bridges gets its name from the fact that the downstream span was used to transport hot metal across the river between the two sections of the giant J&L steel plant. The upstream span (which technically used to be the Monongahela Connecting Railroad Bridge) is now open to automobile traffic; the downstream span is reserved for bicycles.

    Although official records spell this “Hot Metal Bridge,” it is always pronounced “Hotmetal Bridge,” with the accent on the first syllable.

  • Fort Pitt Bridge from Liberty Avenue

    With bonus abstract sculpture and cloud of steam from the infernal regions.

  • Sixth Street Bridge in Early-Morning Sun

    The Roberto Clemente or Sixth Street Bridge is bathed in early-morning sunshine, as seen from the dimness of still-unilluminated Sixth Street downtown.

  • Birmingham Bridge

    This is a lot of bridge for its location. It was originally meant to carry an expressway that would connect Oakland with the South Hills, merrily destroying huge tracts of city along the way. Fortunately this is the only part of it that was built. In the picture below you can see, in the lower right corner, the stub of an entrance ramp that was never completed.

  • Roberto Clemente Bridge

    The Sixth Street or Roberto Clemente Bridge, looking toward the North Side, in glorious black and white.

  • Skyline and Sixteenth Street Bridge

    From the shore of the Allegheny. The immensity of the U. S. Steel Tower is particularly obvious from this angle.

    Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

  • Andy Warhol Bridge

    The Seventh Street or Andy Warhol Bridge, the middle of the famous Three Sisters.

  • Herr’s Island Railroad Bridge

    Built in 1890 to reach the stockyards and other industrial unpleasantness on Herr’s Island, this bridge now carries bicycles from the Three Rivers Heritage Trail. Herr’s Island itself, renamed “Washington’s Landing,” is now full of expensive townhouses at this end, with some offices and businesses in the middle of the island and a park at the northeast end.

    Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3.