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Nice post, i grew up on the Manhattan side of this bridge, and used to watch the K, M, J trains in the 70's on the pedestrian walkway. Gman.
Great photos. These taken before the BRT El service was extended over the bridge. At this time , the El ran to the Broadway-Grand street ferry to Manhattan. You can see it in the other half of this image on the Shorpy site.
Very liitle motor traffic on the bridge as mostly horse drawn wagons handling the commerce. Notice the roadways were illuminated with electric lights as were the boarding areas for the trolleys. The area in the Plaza on the right foreground was known as Washington Plaza and was not completed in this photo. It had a sitting area and there was a large statue of George Washington mounted on a horse in the middle of the Plaza.
The street car operations are interesting. On the left were the cars of the BRT lines which came from various areas in Brooklyn and traveled across the bridge to Manhattan to an underground station which had about 8 loops . This service was removed in the early 1950s and replaced with a bus. You can still see the terminal from the Subway station on the Manhattan side. When the El was extended across the bridge, there was joint service with the BRT El lines and LIRR electric trains to the Rockaways. This started in 1908 and was the LIRR's first terminal in Manhattan beginning service 2 years prior to the opening of Pennsylvania station.
The trolleys on the right side of the photo and the trackways on the Bridge's right side were used by the cars of the Metropolitan railway, a third ave railway subsidiary and cars of the New York railway, Green Line . These cars went both uptown and downtown once they crossed into manhattan. The two cars in the photo went to the Christopher Street ferry on Manhattan's west side . Thes boats crossed the Hudson to the lackawanna's Hoboken Terminal. The second car went to the Hudson River at 14th street in Manhattan. There was a car that went up to the main post office in Manhattan. These cars operated from a third rail below ground and reached through a slot in the middle of the trackway and sort of looked like a three rail track. These services were all gone by the early 1930's and not replaced with buses. Today there is a ramp for a highway connector to I 278, the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
Very liitle motor traffic on the bridge as mostly horse drawn wagons handling the commerce. Notice the roadways were illuminated with electric lights as were the boarding areas for the trolleys. The area in the Plaza on the right foreground was known as Washington Plaza and was not completed in this photo. It had a sitting area and there was a large statue of George Washington mounted on a horse in the middle of the Plaza.
The street car operations are interesting. On the left were the cars of the BRT lines which came from various areas in Brooklyn and traveled across the bridge to Manhattan to an underground station which had about 8 loops . This service was removed in the early 1950s and replaced with a bus. You can still see the terminal from the Subway station on the Manhattan side. When the El was extended across the bridge, there was joint service with the BRT El lines and LIRR electric trains to the Rockaways. This started in 1908 and was the LIRR's first terminal in Manhattan beginning service 2 years prior to the opening of Pennsylvania station.
The trolleys on the right side of the photo and the trackways on the Bridge's right side were used by the cars of the Metropolitan railway, a third ave railway subsidiary and cars of the New York railway, Green Line . These cars went both uptown and downtown once they crossed into manhattan. The two cars in the photo went to the Christopher Street ferry on Manhattan's west side . Thes boats crossed the Hudson to the lackawanna's Hoboken Terminal. The second car went to the Hudson River at 14th street in Manhattan. There was a car that went up to the main post office in Manhattan. These cars operated from a third rail below ground and reached through a slot in the middle of the trackway and sort of looked like a three rail track. These services were all gone by the early 1930's and not replaced with buses. Today there is a ramp for a highway connector to I 278, the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
