(Click on above image to enlarge)

Horizon File Photo
The promenade atop the High Bridge was very popular tourist attraction in the late 1800's.

Horizon File Photo
The Bronx side of the High Bridge is blocked by a gate and lined with barbed wire, as seen in this Horizon photo taken in December 1998.

Effort underway to reopen High Bridge

By Ian Koski
Managing Editor

The High Bridge could be restored and reopened to pedestrian and bike traffic if a coalition of private groups and city agencies can raise the estimated $30 million needed to pay for it.

About 50 people turned out for a symposium earlier this month designed to rally potential supporters of the restoration project. The meeting was sponsored by the High Bridge Coalition, which was formed last March with the sole mission of restoring and preserving the High Bridge.

In the eyes of the Coalition, the monumental task of restoring the High Bridge begins with fund-raising and gathering information about the historical importance of the bridge, a process that is already underway. Last week the city Parks Department was wrapping up negotiations with an unnamed engineering firm to conduct a $1.1 million structural integrity review scheduled to begin in August.

According to a Parks Department spokesperson, the city Department of Transportation pledged $1 million and the city Department of Environmental Protection pledged the remaining $100,000 to pay for the study.

The engineer’s investigation will focus on what needs to be done to make the bridge safe for people who want to walk or ride their bike across it. It will also estimate what it would cost to make cosmetic improvements, like replacing the current walkway made up of several different kinds of brick with a more unified attractive surface.

Also of concern is the large steel arch that supports nearly half of the bridge’s span, specifically the spots where it comes in contact with the original bridge. Reports published earlier this year have also said city officials found structural damage in one of the stone arches.

There is also no safe way to walk or ride down to the bridge’s walkway from the park on the Manhattan side.

The difficulty of making the repairs is not the problem, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said at the symposium. “This is all perfectly doable. Bridges like this have been built and rebuilt since the early Roman days.”

The problem is the price tag.

“It’s going to take tens of millions of dollars to get the bridge up and running again,” Mr. Benepe said.

Ultimately, the price tag will be the most important piece of information to come out of the engineer’s report, which is due this winter. Some estimates have placed the cost at around $30 million.

When the study is finished, it will be integrated into a report about the historical significance of the bridge and a massive fund-raising push will begin. According to Amy Freitag, the deputy commissioner for capital projects at the Parks Department, the next step is to open the bridge to the public during limited, supervised hours. After more fund-raising, the restoration will begin and when it is finally finished, more fund-raising will be done to pay for regular maintenance.

Bridge has strong roots

The historical significance of the High Bridge is rooted in two facets – form and function.

Its towing height and classic Roman arches made the bridge a tourist destination during the 19th century, but its aqueducts made the High Bridge a critical element in the growth of New York City.

The early settlers of Manhattan island got their water from springs and ponds found plentifully throughout what is now considered Lower Manhattan. It wasn’t until 1667 that a well was dug, but by 1750 more than 300 wells were pumping dirty water up to the surface. The water was heavily polluted by local factories and salty from the Hudson and East rivers. By 1774, hollowed-out trees were used to pipe water around town from a small reservoir in what is now Foley Square, but the system was destroyed during the Revolutionary War.

In 1799, Aaron Burr built a private reservoir on Chambers Street using a large cast iron vat and wooden pipes. The reservoir was owned by Mr. Burr’s Manhattan Company, which was more interested in creating a bank than managing New York City’s water system. Public outrage, combined with a devastating cholera epidemic in 1832 and a catastrophic city-wide fire in 1835, led to government plans to build a municipal water system that would bring water down from the Croton River in what is now Westchester County.

Work on the Croton System began in 1837 and on June 27, 1842, water began flowing into Manhattan via an aqueduct that crossed the Harlem River on pontoons. Because permanently blocking the river was unacceptable, the city decided to try something new.

The engineer hired for the project, John Jervis, wanted to build a 50-foot-tall bridge, but citizens envisioned a grander structure – something monumental. The New York State Legislature said Mr. Jervis’ bridge would not be tall enough for boats to pass under and mandated that a taller bridge or a tunnel be constructed. A tunnel would have cost too much and taken too long, so a “high bridge” was designed.

Construction began in 1843 and was completed in 1848, bringing clean water to Manhattan for the first time. The bridge was a tourist attraction from day one, with people riding up from Manhattan to marvel at the country’s longest bridge.

Water consumption skyrocketed at an unexpected rate and within two years the Croton System was nearly at capacity, prompting the city to remove the bridge’s promenade in 1860 and install an 8-foot-wide pipe on top of the two 3-foot-wide pipes.

To accommodate the larger ships that steamed up the Harlem River, five of the High Bridge’s stone piers were removed in 1927 and replaced with a single steel arch. The stones were used to construct a retaining wall on Riverdale Avenue in the northern Bronx.

Unable to meet the city’s water needs and overmatched by more modern systems, the Croton Aqueduct System was taken out of service in 1954. The bridge’s promenade remained open to the public until 1970, when safety concerns prompted the city to close it down and erect barbed-wire fencing.

A park on the Bronx side of the bridge was renovated last year and reopened in January thanks to a $789,000 grant delivered by former City Councilmember Wendell Foster.