New York City's Bridges: Broadway Bridge

The Broadway Bridge crosses over the Harlem River Ship Canal, which connects the Harlem River to the east with the Hudson River to the west. The bridge has a double deck with four traffic lanes and two sidewalks on the bottom and three sets of subway tracks on the top. The bridge provides 304 ft of horizontal clearance through the canal, 136 ft of vertical clearance when the bridge is open, and 24 ft of vertical clearance when the bridge is closed.

The current lift bridge was opened to subways in 1960, to vehicular traffic in 1962, but it couldn't be raised until 1964. Apparently, the need for tall vessels to navigate the Harlem River isn't very acute. I read that they only allow one bridge to open at a time, and during the summer several of the bridges have difficulty opening due to thermal expansion of the decks. One would need a very compelling reason (and a great deal of patience) to take a ship taller than 24 ft any distance along the river.

New York City's Bridges: Broadway Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.