Charter Oak Bridge, Hartford-East Hartford, CT

Charter Oak Bridge

It doesn't carry as much traffic as the Bulkeley Bridge, and it isn't the city centerpiece that Founders Bridge is, but the Charter Oak Bridge, the third (and newest) of Hartford's bridges across the Connecticut, has its own reasons to shine.

The Charter Oak that gave its name to the Hartford neighborhood where this bridge lands is a tree of legend in Connecticut. In 1662, the story goes, King James II decided that the colonies had had quite enough of this independence thing and appointed a governor, Edmund Andros, over the newly created Dominion of New England. When he arrived in Hartford to revoke Connecticut's charter, he was shown it, and then the candles blew out. When relit, the charter was gone -- hidden, it was said, in a huge oak tree, the Charter Oak, in south Hartford. In 1689, Andros was deposed and the Dominion of New England dissolved.

The original Charter Oak was split by lightning 150 years later, but its descendants live on, and the wood of the original tree was made into a chair which stands now in the State House.

Connecticut has always prided itself on its independence -- it was the first state to ratify the Constitution. The Charter Oak is Connecticut's symbol.

Charter Oak Bridge from the tour ship landing

The East Hartford side of the bridge stands in a small park which is (unfortunately) rather marshy. The Hartford side ends in Charter Oak Landing, the main dock for boats both personal and commercial in Hartford.  The Lady Katherine river tours leave from here. (The boat used to leave from Riverside Park near Founders Bridge, dunno why they moved down here). The public landing is on the south end of the park; the north end gives magnificent views of of the Colt Park section of Hartford (marked by the colorful dome on the old Colt Firearms factory) and of the Hartford skyline.

Charter Oak Landing

This picture may have been processed a little bit. I was having some fun with the new version of Picasa. You can see the Colt factory dome on the left of the photo.

Obligatory car shot

I don't honestly know how to get to the park in East Hartford. I've only been there on my bike, and I got there from the bridge itself, which features a wide, separated bike path on the north side. Charter Oak Bridge carries routes 5 and 15 over the river; following those signs will get you there. Or just click on the location information beneath this post and use Google Maps to get you there.

I've gotten to the end of this post without talking much about the bridge itself. You can see from the pictures that it's not all that special, a very modern girder bridge built with steel and concrete, similar to the East Windsor river crossing. It was built between 1988 and 1991 to replace an earlier bridge at the same point. Anyone going from I-84W to I-91S will cross the bridge and will never see the beautiful parks beneath it.

Bulkeley Bridge, East Hartford-Hartford, CT

Bulkeley Bridge from Great River Park, East Hartford

I have to accept that I never will take the "perfect" picture of Bulkeley Bridge. This bridge is made from thousands of shaped stones, and I believe is the longest stone arch bridge in the world. It carries I-84 over the Connecticut River between Hartford and East Hartford. There's a pedestrian walkway along the south side of the bridge, just recently repaired. The bridge condition was getting pretty dire.

It's not easy to get a good sense for how massive this bridge is from pictures alone. You have to get close enough to see all the individual carved stones that make up the bridge and just try to imagine the work that must have gone into each one. They fit together perfectly. I took the top picture last weekend with my DSLR camera; I took the one just above this paragraph a couple years ago with a Samsung point and shoot.

This one I took last summer, after Hurricane Irene decimated the forests that line the Connecticut River and the debris was left to drift downstream, to fetch up against the Bulkeley. You can see just how high the river had risen after the storm.

This is the very first picture I took of the bridge. I'd been driving on top of it for a couple of years, but had never stopped to see what the bridge actually looked like. The stone of the bridge changes character with the light.

The Bulkeley Bridge is the center of river recreation in both cities; the parks on both sides are filled with sculptures, paths, boat landings and such. An "after Independence Day" celebration takes place on the Hartford side each year; sometimes they put colored lights under the arches and light them at night (haven't managed to catch that in advance, yet).

A view of the north side of the bridge, from Riverside Park. Done with really faky HDR before I knew what I was doing. The first picture in this posting is also HDR, but in the year or so since I took this picture, I've figured out about balancing the exposure levels between the composite shots and stuff. Doesn't mean the picture is any good, but at least everything is the correct hue and luminance. Some people have figured out how to do crazy HDR that looks totally unearthly. I don't necessarily WANT to do that -- those photographs tend to be so noisy I can barely figure out what the picture is of -- but I'd like to have that tool in my toolbox to make my pictures look more abstract.

Anyway. Plenty of parking on both sides of the bridge, though on the Hartford side you're more likely to be made to pay. I don't remember if you have to pay to park in the boathouse parking lot.

If you ever come to Hartford, take time out to visit the Bulkeley Bridge. Come when there's something going on and make a day of it. When Hartford puts its mind to it, it's a really nice city.

Bridge of the Day: Burnside Bridge, East Hartford, CT

Burnside Bridge

"Bridge of the Day" is for bridges I find on my way to work, maybe with a little detour along the way. To be honest, though, I didn't even know this bridge existed. There's no way I would have found this on my own. I was shocked to read about it on the CT Historic Bridge site. It's on a side road, the stonework isn't visible from the road, the only way you'd see it is if you decided to take this moment to look at the Hockanum River, but wait -- you wanted to climb down the bank, over the suspiciously bamboo-like reeds, and see it from water level. And then -- there's this bridge!



I guess you could see it from the houses over behind it, in the winter when the foliage wouldn't block it. And the people in the factory across the street probably know all about it.


CT Historic Bridges says the Burnside Bridge was "... Connecticut's first example of a "City Beautiful" bridge. Its graceful lines and granite-ashlar exterior show that it was intended to be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional."


Sorry for the blown out sky. Overcast morning. The only way to get any detail in the sky was HDR, and I wasn't set up for that.


The bike path from Manchester to East Hartford follows the Hockanum River for most of the way, so I have a couple other pictures to share.


This tunnel runs beneath the complicated 84/384 interchange. Left goes to Manchester Community College, and right goes to Hartford. Back the way I came is Wickham Park -- the subject of many photos -- and home. I actually took this picture yesterday. I wanted to get the Burnside Bridge photographed yesterday, but lack of research had me going left instead of right. Getting lost takes longer on a bicycle, but once I realized my mistake, it was far too late to head back the other way. I had to go straight to work.


This is why there's some sky showing in these two pictures while the one of the bridge I came to shoot is overcast. Plus these were phone pictures, and my phone has built in HDR. It's not perfect, but it works well enough.


This bridge is part of the same interchange system; the one above was just a little ahead of this shot. The Hockanum River runs placidly through it on its way to a dam that forms a small lake just before the Burnside Bridge. Once released from the dam, the river flows rapidly to its end in the Connecticut River.

Bridge Picture of the Day: Founders Bridge, East Hartford-Hartford, CT

I can't figure out the weather this winter. Today it was like March. In January. No way I wasn't going to bike into work today.

While crossing the Bulkeley Bridge, I saw ice which had been crawling toward the middle of the river last week, retreating toward the banks today. In the background is Founders Bridge, that takes Route 2 from East Hartford to Hartford and has one of the nicest pedestrian/bike walkways in the area. Great River Park on the East Hartford side looks across the Connecticut to Riverside Park in Hartford. Both are rich with sculptures and places to sit and watch the Connecticut roll by.

I'm saving the Hartford area bridges for huge posts later on. I use them every day and I want to give them the coverage they deserve. They might peek into pictures now and then.