A Design From an Earlier, Steel-Heavy Era
By NATE SCHWEBER
Published: December 27, 2005
With dual towers of black steel, the Lincoln Highway Bridge cuts a dark, industrial image for commuters and residents in and around Newark and Jersey City.
Huge engines and counterweights lift the central portion horizontally up and down, like an elevator, a design that is a relic from the industrial era of American architecture when size was equated with quality, said Leon Yost, a member of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy who has photographed the bridge often.
''There is a mass to it that other bridges don't have, that pokes through the fog,'' Mr. Yost said. He added that the design reflected a ''philosophy of making things out of heavy steel.''
John Gomez, founder of the Landmarks Conservancy, said, ''These steel monoliths give an imposing, almost brooding look.''
Sunday night in the fog, two Jersey City police officers drove off the bridge, which connects Jersey City and Kearny on the Lincoln Highway, part of the first transcontinental highway linking Times Square with San Francisco. The bridge spans the Hackensack River and is on the truck route for U.S. Routes 1 and 9.
A 1954 New York Times article said that construction started in 1951, and that the bridge opened in 1954.
Vertical-lift bridges are common throughout the United States and have been around for more than a century, said Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering at Duke University. They are easier to maintain and operate than the more familiar drawbridge, known as a bascule, and they are no less safe, he said, but they require tall towers, which many people consider unattractive.
''There is a necessity for this large superstructure,'' Professor Petroski said. ''You can disguise bascule bridges.''
Today the Lincoln Highway Bridge rises between 20 and 30 times a month, said Erin Phalon, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
The bridge is 1,600 feet long, though the central portion that rises is 300 feet. About a mile away on the Lincoln Highway, a bridge of the same design spans the Passaic River and connects Kearny and Newark. Both bridges occasionally become stuck while raised, said Bill Sheehan, executive director of Hackensack Riverkeeper Inc., an ecological advocacy organization.
''That's especially annoying to people during rush hour,'' he said.
Anthony Dente, who has worked in a tow-truck company at the base of the bridge in Newark since 1974, said he was shocked by the news of the accident on Sunday evening.
''Aside from once in a while getting stuck when it's real hot out, there's never been a problem,'' he said.