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The Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne Bridges

For a number of years the second Point Bridge and the Manchester Bridge continued to carry an ever increasing volume of traffic, but as the 1930's merged into the '40s, the sloping banks of the river that converged on the Point were transformed into elaborate modern highways. New and larger bridges would certainly be needed. But traffic was not the only reason why the old spans would have to go. The so-called Pittsburgh Renaissance with its large scale plans for the Point area was the prime mover in their vanishment.

A group of prominent Pittsburgh men, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, established the Point Park Commission in 1945. In the same year the Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association, under the leadership of R. K. Mellon, authorized Charles M. Stotz and Ralph E. Griswold, to make a study of the lower triangle area that was to establish the essential features of the park. Their plans, refined through subsequent studies over intervening years in association with the firm of Clark and Rapuano, were incorporated in plans and specifications prepared for the General State Authority by Charles M. and Edward Stotz, in association with Griswold, Winters and Swain, landscape architects.

After the land was cleared of the tangle of commercial installations and decaying buildings, the park work was carried out between 1963 and 1968. Also planned was a great new highway that bisected the park, and to provide the necessary traffic interchanges, the bridges at the Point had to be removed and new ones built 900 feet upstream. The chief reason for this change was an aesthetic one, a "monumental" treatment of the Point itself which was to include a great fountain jet at the confluence of the rivers. (62)

Once the new plans were determined, it was merely a matter of finding a time when the "old" bridges could be most expeditiously demolished. The new spans have no real part in this chronicle, but it will be necessary to mention them to the degree that they played a part in the last days of the Point and Manchester Bridges.

The Fort Pitt Bridge across the Monongahela was opened on 19 June, 1959 and accordingly the Point Bridge was closed on 21 June of the same year. (63) The Fort Duquesne Bridge over the Allegheny was completed not long afterward, but it could not be used for some years because it could not be connected with the ramps of the uncompleted highway system on the North Side. It was referred to locally as the "Bridge to Nowhere". Consequently the Manchester Bridge remained open until 1969. It is interesting that both these doubledeck bridges were designed by George S. Richardson, of Richardson, Gordon and Associates, the engineer who had a prominent part in the design of the second Point bridge. (64)

Meanwhile the closed Point Bridge was exciting considerable controversy. In 1962, bids were opened for the demolition of the bridge. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette of 28 March, stated that: "The County appraised that it will cost $391,589 . . . The County is in the position of being responsible for the demolition . . . because it still owned the bridges when the Fort Pitt Bridge and Tunnels were built, although it was stated to be turned over to the State eventually. On the other hand the State had already taken over the Manchester Bridge from the City when the Fort Duquesne Bridge was planned, so the State will finance the demolition of the Manchester Bridge." However, none of the bids were taken up and the demolition was left in abeyance.

Suggestions were made that the bridge be moved and relocated. The Emsworth Business Men's Association proposed that it be floated down the Ohio and relocated so that it could act as a river crossing between neville Island and Ohio river Boulevard. (65) Director Duff of the County Works Department said the truss was too tall to be gotten under the Ohio River bridges. (66) Again, Robert Cummings, Jr., an independent engineer, proposed that it could be floated up the Monongahela to a point near the Glenwood Bridge to be part of a proposed connecting link with the Parkway West. (67) This suggestion proved equally unfeasible.

Traffic congestion at certain times began to be a problem on the Fort Pitt Bridge not long after it opened. The Pittsburgh Motor Club in 1964 tried to get the Point Bridge reopened. (68) But after much controversy the County Commissioners decided not to reopen the bridge, after traffic experts said that opening it might worsen rather than ease the congestion at the Point. (69)

Last minute attempts, as is usual in such cases, were made to "save" both bridges. New uses were suggested, (70) but the truth was the future of the Point had been decided 25 years before and the decision concerning the bridges was now irreversible.The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, not long after its establishment in 1964, had already looked into the matter but deemed it useless to pursue it further.

To complicate the issue, the question was who was going to pay for the demolition of the Point Bridge -- the County or the State -- was bruited about for several years, but to tell the complete story would be tedious and unrewarding. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on 8 January, 1969, that the cost of razing the Point Bridge was now $600,000, $200,000 more than in 1962 when bids were first taken and rejected. The General State Authority, which funded the Park project, agreed to pay for the removal of the bridge ramps. (71) Fred de Pasquale, assistant district engineer for the State Highway Department, said that the State would handle the demolition of the Point Bridge but that the County would have to pay for it. It was cheaper to demolish both bridges at once.

Finally an agreement was reached and the State awarded a demolition contract to the Dravo Corporation for $2,600,000 on31 October, 1969; the subcontract for the razing of the steel superstructures was given to the American Bridge Company on 8 December, 1969. (73) Thus two companies that had been participants in the birth of the two bridges were, in a sense, in at their death.

The Pittsburgh Press reported on 9 November, 1969, that -- "Work on the long awaited one-year $2,600,000 demolition of the Point and Manchester Bridges will get underway on 13 November with the North Side approach to go first to make way for the Stadium roadways. Next to go will be the ramps on the Pittsburgh side to permit the final development of Point Park. The bridges themselves won't be demolished until May , 1970, because the U. S. Coast Guard restricts such work in winter."

Accordingly, the demolition of the Point Bridge as begun early in the summer of 1970.The dismantling of the great truss span was begun from the center by a large crane mounted on a barge and the removal followed a kind of reverse cantilever method. (73) George Richardson told the writer that in order to allow for such a method of demolition the suspended span of the cantilever arms had to be firmly pinned-- thus making the whole structure a continuous truss for demolition's sake -- otherwise the center span would have fallen into the river. By the end of the summer nothing was left of the great bridge.

Then came the turn of the Manchester Bridge. After demolition crews had removed the deck, railings, and fittings from the south span, explosive charges were placed strategically among the trusses on 30 September, but when they were detonated the span still stood firm. (74) A second attempt was made 11 hours later and this time the span fell into the river from whence it was later removed by barges. On 28 October, the north span was razed by the same method. (75)

So ended the story of the bridges at the Point.Should they have been preserved? The writer is inclined to think so. Certainly the Manchester Bridge could have provided a sorely needed pedestrian access to the new Three Rivers Stadium on the North Side. Now the spans have vanished, and the Point innocent of traffic encumbrances and still lacking its great fountain jet, thrusts its historic and immemorial length into the waters flowing always to the west.

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