WORD comes that the two distinctive Belt Parkway pedestrian bridges that go over the parkway to the bike/pedestrian path along the Narrows are under demolition and will be replaced. I hope the replacements match the distinctive designs of the circa 1940 originals.
The Belt Parkway engineers built these gorgeous pedestrian bridges, four in number, at various locales along the Belt Parkway in Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst. There are two in Bay Ridge, at about 80th and 92nd Streets, and in Bensonhurst at the Bath Beach Playground (where 17th Avenue would be) and 27th Avenues. The bridges boast details like curved handrails found nowhere else in Department of Transportation engineering, and pedestrian bridges on other NYC Robert Moses parkways, such as the Cross Island Parkway, BQE or Long Island Expressway, are more…ah…pedestrian in appearance.
Two of these bridges also preserve the now very rare Type F lightpost, with reverse scrollwork (e.g. the little curl behind the post turns “up” in this design, while they were turned “down” in the lengthier long-arm NYC “Corvington” posts). There are just a handful of these left from the old days…one here, a couple on the 27th Avenue Belt Parkway ped bridge, West 13th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, one in Ridgewood Gardens, Maspeth, Queens. They used to light side streets in Manhattan by the thousands. A new mold has been cut and retro-Type F posts have reappeared on streets like West 8th in the Village and Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick.
Here is one of a pair of Type Fs complete with Westinghouse incandescent “cuplight” fixture but with a missing finial. Since these Type Fs are landmarked they must go back when the bridge has been replaced; hopefully the DOT can restore the missing finial. In the 1990s they were painted bright blue, which has faded in the 30 years since.
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4/5/23
24 comments
Q: What was wrong with the old bridges?
A: Theyre under demolition and will be replaced
The bridges are not ADA accessible.
They are racist….Mayor Pete said so
Love these articles and pictures. Thank you.
These bridges were constantly being hit by misplaced tractor trailers that took a wrong turn usually exiting from the Verrazano bridge and occasionally from the BQE,….. especially the bridge located @ Shore Parkway & 17th Avenue, which has been hit many times by trucks….
Saw it all the time. The truckers are not that bright. They shouldn’t have been driving them in the first place.
While there is little chance of the Belt accommodating trucks or even buses in the future, I hope that when these get replaced they get placed to interstate standards.
I remember the 17th Ave bridge quite well. It was all green in the 50’s-60’s. My folks would take us to Dyker Park to throw a ball around, then to Shore Road where we’d cross the bridge to walk the dog along the Narrows. I was able to ride a bike down those steps. I don’t recall seeing the safety fencing back then.
Bill: Enjoy those fond memories while you can because that’s all that’s left. Whether the original bridges remain or they’re replaced, due to the fact that NYC has become a lawless dystopia these bridges are perfect escape-proof locations for robberies. The access may be limited but also the long narrow design limits escape opportunities for the victims. I vaguely recall hearing one of these bridges described as “the bridge of sighs” , probably for
that reason (& that was long ago before NYC started its crash dive to the bottom).
When was the last time you were in this city? It has the lowest crime rate of any major city in the U.S. These bridges are in prime very desirable residential neighborhoods in Brooklyn. There are very few areas of Brooklyn left that are considered undesirable and those areas are shrinking. FYI downtown Brooklyn is now a prime residential area with first class hotels, many 30 – 40 story plus buildings, a 96,000 square foot Wegmans supermarket, several Trader Joe’s and many other major stores. Do your research before you write something. Again, FYI even the Bronx is changing for the better.
NYPD has been forced, by a pair of mayors who leave much to be desired, to manipulate the numbers by changing classifications much the same way as COVID numbers were exaggerated (i.e. homicide victim, shot to death, tests positive for COVID so the coroner makes that the cause of death, not fatal gunshot wound). I was last in NYC in 2007, during Bloomberg’s second term when NYC was truly the safest big city. Not so anymore & probably never again unless you people actually start voting again. It’s bad enough reading about crime in NYC & urban America in general. I’m sure you will be glad to know that I shall never return there. You’re welcome to visit the American heartland, but I’m sure that you reflexively don’t like what you don’t want to understand, so goodbye.
Yes pedestrian bridge could mean an ordinary boring bridge. Never thought of that. Footbridge ?
The bridges were built low clearance deliberately by Bob Moses. He did not want commercial traffic on his parkways after his death. Richmond Parkway was built differently for some reason.
Actually, it was worse than that. According to Robert Caro, in the still in print ,The Power Broker, a land mark biography of
Robert Moses, the bridges were built to prevent any commercial traffic, particularly commercial buses.
These busses were used by Black Churches for their congregant trips out of the inner cities to what ever parks were
available. They could not use Northern State nor Southern State to any of the state beaches like Jones Beach.
Moses was a first class bigot.
Yeah because only blacks ride busses. Been here morons parroting the same trop for decades now. Utter nonsense. Parkways were kept free of commercial traffic. So no trucks and busses you dolt.
Try to be polite.
The world needs it.
Thanks for the update. Sorry to see these bridges taken down.
Robert Moses legacy of low clearance bridges.
Racist bass-turd.
that be because he be prejudice again the black comunty
As kids we would wave to the car’s passing by below and got a thrill when they beeped and waved back
Here’s something that could reinforce your pleasant memories & cut through all the mythology surrounding the subject:
https://spectator.org/mayor-pete-and-the-myth-of-the-racist-highway/
Prosecite the vandals that do the graffiti.
For those who don’t know, highways that were named parkways were never designed for commercial traffic to begin with, and it’s not just in NYC itself, which is what later lead to the interstate highways that were built later on.
Moses was an evil, racist POS.