TRI-BOROUGH BRIDGE: EAST 125TH STREET APPROACH

TRI-BOROUGH BRIDGE: STEEL GIRDERS

TRI-BOROUGH BRIDGE: CABLES
JUNE 29, 1937. ABBOTT FILES 233, 234, AND 241

Triborough Bridge in Construction, 1930-33

Opened in July 1936, the Triborough Bridge was not a single bridge but a 17-mile network of bridges and roads connecting Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. Unlike the older Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro Bridges, which emptied directly into local traffic, the Triborough pioneered a new approach to automobile circulation, relying on cloverleafs and long stretches of highway to move traffic smoothly to the city's streets. Masterminded by Robert Moses, who was appointed in 1934 to head the newly created Triborough Bridge Authority, the $60 million project was as much a feat of political manuveuring as of engineering skill.

Triborough Bridge, Girders, Full Negative

The bridge was begun in 1929, shortly before the stock market crash, and languished until 1934, when Moses secured federal loans of $45 million. With a toll of 25 cents per car and an expected 25 million cars a year, the loans were to be paid back over 20 years. The completion of the bridge assured the recreational development of Randalls and Wards Islands, over which the bridge passed, and the transformation of a Queens garbage dump into Flushing-Meadow Park, site of the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Abbott first tried, and failed, to photograph the bridge's construction from a moving boat. However, the three exposures taken on the same summer day one year after the bridge's opening succeed as elegant geometric abstractions. For two of the three, she managed to set up her 8-x-10-inch camera on the roadbed with cars passing on either side. Girders was taken on the innovative vertical-lift portion of the bridge, just before the exit ramp at 125th Street in Manhattan. In the final print, Abbott cropped the image on all four sides (Girders, full negative). Cables was taken on the suspension span over the East River connecting Randalls Island to Astoria Boulevard in Queens. The most complex image of the three, which appears in Changing New York, is East 125th Street Approach. Here Abbott used a 5-x-7-inch camera and stood on the roof of a utility building to capture the graceful curve of dual-entry ramps.

The bridge itself has not changed since Abbott's day, although the toll, having covered federal loans long ago, is now up to $3.50.

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