"The George Washington Bridge is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge, carrying over 103 million vehicles in 2016." It opened on Oct 25, 1931, and the lower deck was opened on Aug 29, 1962. It has 14 lanes of traffic and the length of the main span is 3,500' (1067m). [BridgeHunter]
But when it opened it had only 4 lanes because the designed capacity wasn't needed back then. [baruch]
Roebling's Kinkora plant made all of the wire for the suspension cables.
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| LC-DIG-highsm- 45282 (ONLINE) [P&P] Credit line: West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division Carol M. Highsmith's photographs are in the public domain. [Carol took several more photos of this bridge.] |
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| 1 of 3 photos posted by Bridges & Tunnels From the archives: The latest article at Bridges & Tunnels covers the massive George Washington Bridge, a double-decked suspension bridge that carries Interstate 95, and US Routes 1 and 9 over the Hudson River, connecting New York City, New York and Fort Lee, New Jersey. The six-lane bridge was dedicated on October 24, 1931 but was quickly expanded with two reversible lanes in 1946. A lower deck was opened in 1962. View an extensive history and many more photos of the bridge at Dave Frieder: Engineer of design, Allston Dana with the Collaboration of Othmar Ammann. |
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| Dave Frieder commented on B&T's post [11 of Dave's photos of this bridge] |
A lot of concrete was needed to anchor the cables. In fact, "it consisted of 110,000 cubic yards of concrete weighing up to 260,000 tons." [baruch]
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| Street View, Nov 2022 |
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| Postcard via BridgeHunter [The deck looks rather frail when it had just one traffic level.] |
I remember reading that the design included a stone cladding, but construction ended in the depression so they decided to open without the added expense of the cladding. Later, people liked the raw strength look so much that they scrapped the plans to add a cladding. This is the first time I've seen what it was envisioned to be.
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| Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) via mcny via Bridge Hunter, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) Photo from 1926 rendering "In pencil, on verso: 120081 Wurts Neg Number / Label on original envelope / "Rendering of F.G. Stickel- "Hudson River Bridge Tower" / Cass Gilbert / 1926 (Feb. 26)." |
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| HAER NY,31-NEYO,161--68 (CT) VIEW FROM TOP OF NEW JERSEY TOWER TO NEW YORK TOWER - George Washington Bridge, Spanning Hudson River between Manhattan & Fort Lee, NJ, New York County, NY [BridgeHunter has the entire selection of HAER photos including several showing the inside of the cable anchorage.] |
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| New York Top Photo posted George Washington Bridge, https://www.instagram.com/mingomatic/ Roger Aldridge: https://youtu.be/NHppx3uCxxM "George Washington Bridge - W. Schuman (1910-1992)" [It is an orchestral performance.] |
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| New York Top Photo posted George Washington Bridge, https://www.instagram.com/the_acphotos/ |
Stephen Wilson posted two images with the comment: "I absolutely love this spot on the Palisades in New Jersey overlooking the GWB. Such an impressive perspective of the bridge, and an important spot in American history during the revolutionary war. If you have the opportunity, def check it out."
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| Bridges Now and Then posted "The main cable of the George Washington Bridge is being laid as construction of the suspension bridge connecting New York and New Jersey continues on October 23, 1929. AP Photo." (Time Magazine) James Torgeson posted Ironworkers from John A. Roebling's Sons spin/fabricate the four main cables for the George Washington Bridge in 1929. While only two would be needed for the single deck as built, a second, lower deck was planned and was added by Bethlehem Steel in 1962. Bethlehem predecessor McClintic-Marshall did the steelwork for the original bridge. Real Bubba: John Roebling and his Brother Carl emigrated to Western PA where they formed the German Community of Saxonburg. After 5 years farming he returned to his engineering background and is credited with the invention of wire rope (steel cable) |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted New York's George Washington Bridge is seen during construction, December 21, 1930. (Harry Warnecke/NY Daily News Archive) Dave Frieder: Towers by McClintic-Marshall Steel. Main Cables and suspenders by John A. Roebling's Sons Inc. |
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| John Kathman commented on BN&T's post Fabricated by Bethlehem Steel in Pottstown Pa. My father worked on it. |
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| HistoricBridges has a lot of construction photos. This is one of the tests of the cable. |
Headlines can be misleading. nbcnewyork has:
‘Restoring the George' Program Brings Renovated Walkway to GWB to Enhance SafetyThis $2 billion program recently constructed accessibility and security changes to the bridge's north walk
My reaction was how can a trail bridge cost $2b? The answer is that the project included replacing the original northside suspension cables. The jest of the trail improvements is that they replaced 171 access steps with ramps.
timeout has some photos of the new trail.
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