On Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1924, the Bear Mountain Bridge was opened to the general public after being formally dedicated the day prior, with a crush of cars lined up to be first across.
It was a groundbreaking engineering achievement for its time, being the first vehicular bridge over the Hudson River south of Albany and the first suspension bridge with a concrete deck. For a brief period, it also held the title of “bridge with the longest suspended span in the world.” Many consider the innovations with the Bear Mountain Bridge to have spurred a boom in bridge building in New York State and the entire country in the years following. Originally built by a private enterprise funded by the Harriman family, the bridge would come under the ownership of NYSBA in 1940.
Sometime during the late phases of construction in 1924, workers and others affiliated with the project posed for a photograph, both on the steel tower and on the deck below. Not much is known about who is in the original photo or who was behind the camera. However, it resurfaced nearly a century later, when local historian Frank Goderre came across it and brought it to the attention of NYSBA and HBHV.
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