1895: (Bridge Hunter)
1930: (Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; 3D Satellite)It appears that the counterweights go down those curved rails on top. I used the "bridgeRare" label for this bridge.
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| Bridges Now and Then posted and LC-D4-12914 [P&P] Buffalo, New York's Michigan Street Bridge, c. 1900. (Detroit Publishing/LOC) Dennis DeBruler shared |
The following photo confirms my theory about the counterweights.
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| Bridges Now and Then commented on their post and LC-D4-34791 [P&P] bygonely, 37th photo |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on the post by Bridges Now and Then LC-D4-12915 [P&P] |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on the post by Bridges Now and Then STEREO U.S. GEOG FILE - New York--Buffalo [item] [P&P] |
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| One of several postcard images on BridgeHunter-1895 |
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| Brad Smith posted View from the top the DL&W train shed showing the team tracks on the left, the combination tower/power station in the center and the fire boat and Michigan Avenue bridge on the right. irca early 1917. Photo taken by William Barry and provided courtesy of the Steamtown National Historical Site. |
This bridge is a rather rare lift bridge because it carries a road instead of a railroad. One reason is that Chicago made the decision that lift bridges looked "too industrial" for use near the loop. But the destruction by loose freighters described in the post below is the motivation for these notes.
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| Josh Schmid via Bridge Hunter, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) |
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Judy Tucker posted I apologize if this event has been covered at nauseum in this forum, but this is a picture of the infamous Tewksbury disaster. While bridge watchmen were drinking in the Swannie House, the Shiraz broke from her mooring, slammed into the Tewksbury, both of which started careening, unfettered, down the Buffalo River, and hit the lowered Michigan Street bridge (because of the watchmen did not lift the bridge in time) and destroyed the bridge. The two boats created a dam and water and ice backed up. Soon all of the First Ward was flooded. January 21, 1959. Larry Fallon: I'm not so sure about the Swannie House story. A very good friend was engineer on the Cotter. He said the main cause was a power outage, and the time lost getting between Swannie House and bridge would have made little difference. Said they had to start an auxiliary pony motor ( ford-in line4 cylinder)) and were starting to raise bridge. He said it moved at about same speed as jacking a car, hence why it wasn't up in time. Would be interesting if true . Michael Satanek: I didn’t realize that was so recent! So Michigan street bridge is actually quite new! Peg Overdorf: Michael Satanek 1961 Judy Tucker: This picture is framed and is hung on the wall of the second floor of the Swannie House. I wish it were in more public view. Apologize for the camera flash mark. Dan Learn: The book Buffalo Waterfront in Pictures covers this story and has some great photos, but not that one. Thanks for sharing! The story in the book mentions nothing about the absence or drinking habits of the bridge tenders. It does mention that the incident happened late at night, when most (if not all) ships were tied up in winter storage. Being in the dark and the off season, the bridge tenders on duty had no reasonable expectation of seeing a ship requiring passage. The bridge operators did attempt to lift the bridge (the other was already raised for maintenance, and both ships passed through without incident), but too little, too late. Let's remember off season and darkness, and not fault them. |
Mardy Howe posted three photos with the comment:
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY 21 JANUARY 19591959: High winds at Buffalo tore the MacGILVRAY SHIRAS loose when a heavy current swept the Buffalo River. The wayward vessel struck MICHAEL K. TEWSBURY and MERTON E. FARR and eventually demolished the Michigan Ave. Bridge. The damaged SHIRAS was not repaired and arrived in Hamilton in June 1959 for scrapping.The Buffalo River in winter is normally a quiet place. Back in the day, Great Lakes freighters as long as two football fields would lay up for the winter here, awaiting the resumption of Great Lakes shipping come spring thaw. On the evening of January 21,1959, however, freighter mayhem literally broke loose here, in an incident that will never be forgotten in Buffalo's historic Old First Ward.As anyone from Buffalo knows, freeze followed by thaw can unleash ice jams in the Buffalo River and its tributaries. And so it began on that fateful night. About 9:00 p.m. an ice jam on Cazenovia Creek broke loose and poured inexorably into the Buffalo River. Like a tsunami, it slammed into the MacGilvray Shiras, a freighter owned by The Kinsman Marine Transit Company (a company owned by the Steinbrenner family, including a then-28-year-old George Steinbrenner, of New York Yankees fame). The Shiras was moored for the winter at the Continental Grain elevators at the foot of Smith Street. The force exerted by the ice jam caused a "deadman" to which she was moored to pull out of the ground, and the Shiras careened downriver, stern first, like a gargantuan pinball. Driven by a gale-force wind, at 11:00 p.m. she collided with the Michael K. Tewksbury, moored at the Standard elevators near the foot of St. Clair Street. The Tewksbury was unmanned, her shopkeeper ashore watching television with his girlfriend and her family. The force of the collision caused the Tewksbury to break from her mooring, and both behemoths rolled on down the river. The Michigan Avenue bridge crew, near an 11:00 shift change, was not there to receive the initial call from the Buffalo Fire Department to lift the bridge. They were reportedly finishing out their shift in The Swannie House at the corner of Michigan and Ohio, the second oldest tavern in Buffalo, and still serving today. With the freighters closing in, efforts to lift the bridge were too late. The freighters struck and wedged at 11:17 p.m. The bridge was destroyed. The two freighters, one 425 feet long and the other 525 feet, wedged against the ruined bridge in a channel 177 feet wide. They dammed the Buffalo River, causing the mother of all ice jams. The ensuing deluge inundated the Old First Ward, and the flooding extended three miles upstream. Amazingly, there were no casualties.The Michigan Avenue bridge was replaced within a year by the present span.FOR FUTURE READING ON THE ENSUING LAWSUITS:-
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| Bridges Now and Then posted January 21, 1959, the unmanned freighter Michael K. Tewksbury topples the Michigan Avenue Bridge, Buffalo, New York. The rest of the story will be in the comments. (The Buffalo News) Bridges Now and Then"Weather could not solely be blamed for the disaster. A boat watchman for the Michael K. Tewksbury had left his post to visit his mistress. A pair of bridge crewmen had left their posts at the Michigan Avenue Bridge to indulge in drink at the nearby Swanee House." |
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| Jeffrey B Dunbar commented on Bridges Now and Then post This is the area that it happened. There is a restaurant over there named after the boat. |
Because the bridge is next to the General Mills plant, this photo of the fireboat caught the west tower of the bridge.
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| Jim Gates posted via DeBruler April 2018, General Mills, Cheerio plant, on the Buffalo river, in Buffalo NY. Please note the E.M. Cotter, the oldest working Fireboat, in the world! |
Note the fireboat in the lower-left corner of this street view.
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| Street View |
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| Brian R. Wroblewski posted From the BPD: The Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge over the Buffalo River will be closed to pedestrian and vehicular traffic at 8am this Thursday, May 25th [2023] for approximately 4 months for rehabilitation of the concrete abutments, replacement of the timber fenders and repairs to the timber dolphins. Oakgrove Construction will be performing the work as part of an $812,700 rehabilitation project at the bridge. The lift span will be raised to the fully open position throughout the project to allow for full access under the bridge for maritime traffic. The posted detour for vehicular traffic will be South Park Avenue to Louisiana Street, over the Ohio Street lift Bridge, ending at Ganson Street. Please use caution in the area and re-route as needed. Nate Neuman: Didn’t we just do this three years ago?Brian R. Wroblewski: Nate Neuman that was for the lift cables that time. Mark Twardowski: So you couldn't have done it the last two years when it was worked on? Ridiculous [This was my thought.] Brian R. Wroblewski: Mark Twardowski #1 they didn't have the money then, #2 the two types of work to be done would conflict with each other & be impossible to do at the same time. |
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| Jerry M Malloy posted The J.A.W. Iglehart cement carrier, leaving Buffalo Harbor under the Michigan Ave. lift bridge over the Buffalo River. Kellogg Elevator in back. 1980s. View from roof of the Harbor Inn building Ohio St. |
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