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DIGGING BEGINS: Inside Astoria Park, on Jan. 26, 1932, at the start of digging for the construction of the bridge. The Gentlemen in photo is unidentified. (Photographer unknown)
NEW YORK—The Robert F. Kennedy Bridge—still called Triborough Bridge by many—turned 75 on Monday. The bridge opened connections between Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan on July 11, 1936.
The engineering marvel connects three of the city's five boroughs, has transported more than 60 million cars, and emerged over the East River during the Great Depression like a beacon of hope. It has also penetrated the city's collective memory for generations.
Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Bridges and Tunnels and Greater Astoria Historical Society (GAHS) teamed up to bring a personal dimension to the structure's history.
A photo exhibit called “A Planner’s Dream, an Engineer’s Triumph, a Legacy to our City,” opened to the public on Monday and will remain on display at GAHS's Quinn Gallery in Long Island City until October. Some of these photos from the MTA and GAHS archives have come from the personal photo albums of New Yorkers over the years.
Someone's mother sitting on a bench by the teenaged bridge in the 1940s; the sun setting over the bridge framed by the foliage of shoreline trees; a daredevil standing atop one of the tall spires for a $5 bet in the 1930s.
The MTA is also compiling an oral history of the structure, collecting stories and encouraging New Yorkers to share their memories of the bridge.
“It's really the story of people—people that built the bridge, that planned the bridge, [and] whose backyard the bridge is in,” said Bob Singleton, executive director of the GAHS.
“This is the stuff that never gets in the history books,” he asserted.
One contributor told a humorous tale from his childhood.
A father gathered his children around one night, recounted Singleton. He told them, “I can have Mr. Bridge Man turn the lights on for you.” He picked up the phone and told “Mr. Bridge Man” to turn on the lights in about 15 seconds. He went to the window to count down with his children and the little ones were amazed and impressed with their father's connections when the lights blinked on just in time.
The personal accounts augment an already fascinating official history, the one that does make it into the history books.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
SUNSET: A photograph of the Triborough Bridge from 1935. (Photographer unknown)
The building project broke ground on Oct. 25, 1929, only four days before the stock market crash that would plunge the city into the Great Depression.
The construction halted in 1932, but resumed in 1933 revived by a federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan.
“The Triborough Bridge is a great example of how stimulus funds should be spent,” declared Councilman Peter Vallone, who represents Astoria.
“It was something needed, necessary, created jobs, and a beautiful, lasting legacy,” he added.
The designer of the George Washington Bridge, Othmar H. Ammann, was commissioned to redesign the bridge in the Art Deco style popular at the time. It got 2,800 men to work and cost a total of $60.3 million.
When it opened in 1936, a 10-year-old Tony Bennett sang at the ceremony and former President Franklin D. Roosevelt attended the festivities, which are captured by a picture at the exhibit.
The bridge was renamed in honor of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in August 2008, though Vallone says it will remain the Triborough for him.
