Falls Bridge
Encyclopedia
The Falls Bridge is a steel Pratt truss bridge that spans the Schuylkill River
in Fairmount Park
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
. It connects Kelly (formerly East River) Drive at Calumet Street with Martin Luther King, Jr. (formerly West River) Drive at Neill Drive. It replaced a wooden covered bridge at the same site.
The 556 feet (169.5 m) bridge, with stonemasonry abutments and two stonemasonry piers, with three Pratt-type pin-connected trusses, was built in 1894–1895 at a cost of $262,000 by Filbert Porter & Co. under the direction of Chief Engineer George Smedley Webster (1855–1931) of the Philadelphia Department of Public Works and James H. Windrim, director of the Department of Public Works. The bridge was designed as a double-decker bridge, but the upper deck was never built for lack of funds. The bridge carries two lanes of vehicular traffic on a 26-ft-wide roadway, with 7-ft sidewalks on either side, for a total width of 40 ft.
This is one of the more fantastic Pratt Trusses in the greater Philadelphia region. An interesting thing about the Falls Bridge is that, from just a casual onlooker's perspective, you can distinguish between compression and tension members. It can even be determined how large the tension forces are by counting number of eyebars. This is amazing! You can practically see the loading!
In 2007, blue LED lights were added to highlight the bridge at night.
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
in Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of 63 parks, with , all overseen by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, successor to the Fairmount Park Commission in 2010.-Fairmount Park proper:...
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. It connects Kelly (formerly East River) Drive at Calumet Street with Martin Luther King, Jr. (formerly West River) Drive at Neill Drive. It replaced a wooden covered bridge at the same site.
The 556 feet (169.5 m) bridge, with stonemasonry abutments and two stonemasonry piers, with three Pratt-type pin-connected trusses, was built in 1894–1895 at a cost of $262,000 by Filbert Porter & Co. under the direction of Chief Engineer George Smedley Webster (1855–1931) of the Philadelphia Department of Public Works and James H. Windrim, director of the Department of Public Works. The bridge was designed as a double-decker bridge, but the upper deck was never built for lack of funds. The bridge carries two lanes of vehicular traffic on a 26-ft-wide roadway, with 7-ft sidewalks on either side, for a total width of 40 ft.
This is one of the more fantastic Pratt Trusses in the greater Philadelphia region. An interesting thing about the Falls Bridge is that, from just a casual onlooker's perspective, you can distinguish between compression and tension members. It can even be determined how large the tension forces are by counting number of eyebars. This is amazing! You can practically see the loading!
In 2007, blue LED lights were added to highlight the bridge at night.
External links
- Listing and photographs at the Historic American Engineering Record
- Article at "Workshop of the World"
- Article at "The Necessity of Ruins"
- Listing at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
- Listing at BridgeHunter.com