Merritt Parkway, Greenwich, CT

North Street Bridge

Kind of an unusual shot. I was on my way back from Virginia. I usually swing wide to avoid major cities -- and their tolls -- but this time, I made the straight shot up the coast on Route 95 and the NJ Turnpike. So many tolls. So many great bridges, too, from the Woodrow Wilson in DC to quite a few in the Baltimore area to the absolutely stupendous Delaware Bridge and just as twilight ended, over the George Washington Bridge. I didn't get pictures of any of them. Someday.

I was out of money after the Geo. Washington, so I figured I'd avoid the toll in White Plains and just go up the Hutchinson Parkway to my old friend, the Merritt Parkway, home to some of the most intriguing bridges in the state of Connecticut. It being dark, I didn't expect to get any pictures... but Fate intervened.

There was a tragic accident up ahead, and we ended up parked on the parkway (aha!) for a good forty five minutes. Right in front of the North Street bridge in Greenwich. Rested the camera on the dash and got this long exposure picture.

Merritt Parkway

I had bought a dashboard mount for my iPhone awhile back with the intent of taking pictures from the car of the Merritt Parkway bridges because I couldn't think of any better way to take pictures of dozens of ornate bridges from a highway where places to stop were rare and in any case, not well-placed for bridge photography.

The pictures came out -- sorta. This one above, from outside the Sikorsky plant in Stratford, I took with the regular camera. When the Merritt Parkway was first built, each underpass and overpass was designed to reflect a different art style or construction technique. The planners just wanted to make a really beautiful road for travelers from or to New York to skip past the coastal cities on Connecticut's "handle". The bridge above would have worked just as well without the iron leaves... but it was more beautiful with them.

I'm adding some of the pictures automatically taken on the car trip below. Not great quality, I just had the iPhone on the dash snapping whatever it saw every three seconds, but it should give an impression of the wide variety and detail of the bridges on the Merritt Parkway.