ALFRED Pancoast Boller (February 23, 1840 – December 9, 1912) was a civil engineer and bridge designer. He was the chief engineer on several bridge building projects during the late 1800 and neary 1900s. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States, Boller graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He co-founded an engineering company, Boller & Hodge, that was based in New York City. Boller designed the third Market Street Bridge in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the Madison most of the Harlem River bridges and the Connecticut River Bridge in Connecticut. He was also the chief engineer of Manhattan‘s elevated railroads.
That last is tossed off as if inconsequential. But from the late 1800s into the 1940s the elevated was Manhattan’s aorta, bringing human traffic along 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 9th Avenues to workplaces and businesses nearly the length of the borough, until the LaGuardia era when the Independent Subway was built and els became inesthetic and were duly ripped down. The University Heights Bridge is named for the Bronx neighborhood at its eastern end and runs from West 207th in Inwood to Fordham Road. As such it is a direct connector to Pelham Parkway, Pelham Bay Park and the Hutchinson River Parkway. It was not built in the place it originally occupied — at first, it brought traffic over the Harlem River Ship Canal, connecting the Broadways of Manhattan and the Bronx. In the early part of the 19 Aughts it was decided to build a double decked swing span over Broadway to accommodate the new elevated, and so the old Broadway Bridge was floated down the Harlem to its current location in 1906. The newly Christened University Heights Bridge replaced a wood footbridge that had been in place since 1881 and removed in 1895, when the Ship Canal made the Harlem River navigable all the way to the Hudson River. After additional steel and electric work, the bridge reopened in 1908.
[Excuse the late post; I was automatically updated to a new WordPress edition, and have had to troubleshoot some things; I can’t add initial caps on paragraphs, as older versions made it much easier]
1/21/25