UNDER RIVERSIDE DRIVE VIADUCT
125th Street and Twelfth Avenue
NOVEMBER 10, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 274

Riverside Drive Viaduct, variant image

The Riverside Drive Viaduct, which opened in 1901 and extended from 125th to 135th Street, spanned a valley near the Hudson River on the edge of Harlem. The viaduct, which rose 70 feet, was an early attempt to solve the city's expanding traffic problems. Until 1927, when 15-foot sidewalks were built on either side of the roadbed, cars skidding in inclement weather sometimes plunged over its rails.

At 132nd Street, a gas tank occupied an entire block, and Abbott may have been attracted by its proximity to the viaduct. She photographed the same composition with two cameras, choosing to print a cropped version of the 5-x-7-inch negative in which the arch closest to the camera served to frame the image.

After decades of neglect, the viaduct was completely rebuilt in 1987, at a cost of $36 million; its original cost was $775,000. The industrial buildings underneath remain, but the gas tank is gone. Behind the viaduct stands the Manhattanville Houses, a public housing project designed in 1961 by modernist architect William Lescaze.

Return to the North of 59th Street