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.