Pelham Bay/Shore Road Bridge, Bronx, NY

Pelham Bay Bridge

It's still catch-up week here at Life, On a Bridged. This weekend is going to be a post about three beautiful bridges in the Portsmouth, NH area, and next week is going to be Covered Bridge Week. (Preview: we cover the most haunted bridge in the Berkshires!)

But for now, we're in the Bronx, at the Pelham Bay/Shore Road Bridge.

Usually when I visit the Bronx, I go by train. It's convenient, comfortable and even fun. Once in the city, the subway and buses bring me anywhere I need to go. This is how things were for years, until I got a car. While following the Merritt Parkway into New York, I came for the first time to NYC in a car. And that made all the difference. Unlike traveling in a train, in a car I could get lost. And while lost, I could find things.

I'd hoped to get a NYC bridge while I was in the area before heading back home to Connecticut (and I did, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge). On the way to that bridge, I passed over this bridge. I immediately turned around, parked at the Bronx Equestrian Center, and looked for someplace with a good view of the bridge.

I didn't have to go far; there is a trail off of City Island Road (which has some pretty cool bike paths) which goes right up to the mouth of the Hutchinson River, over which the bridge runs.

The bridge is one of the busiest drawbridges in the city, second only to the Hamilton Avenue Bridge in Brooklyn. (Reading that report, btw, I bet I could spend a year, easy, just photographing New York City's historic bridges). It was completed in 1909, replacing a wooden bridge that crossed the river nearby, and celebrated its centennial a couple years back.

It's not a long bridge, but you can walk over it and enjoy both halves of the Pelham Bay Park (and landfill!). Say what you like about NYC, they have amazing parks. This trip I visited the Pelham Bay Park and the Ferry Point Park and was impressed by them both.