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View south from Washington Blvd More detail photos OFFICIAL NAME: Larimer Avenue Bridge OTHER DESIGNATION: Larimer Av over Washington Blvd LOCATION: Pittsburgh USGS 7.5" Topo Quad - UTM Coordinates: Pittsburgh East - Zone 17; 0592 4479 CARRIES: -- Larimer Av BETWEEN: --Orphan St --Deary St CROSSES: -- Washington Blvd [PA8, Blue Belt] -- also crosses PRR Brilliant Cutoff on 142 ft plate girder span TYPE OF CONSTRUCTION / DESIGN: Reinforced concrete open spandrel deck arch LENGTH OF MAIN SPAN: 300 ft 4 in [longest of its type in the world when opened] TOTAL LENGTH (including longest elevated ramp): 670 ft 50 ft wide HEIGHT OF DECK: 100 ft est YEAR ERECTED / ENGINEER: 1912, City of Pittsburgh John Ashley Ferguson, Design Engineer T. J. Wilkerson, Engineer, Division of Bridges Stanley L. Roush, Architect Deck replaced and ornamentation removed in 1980s ADDITIONAL INFO: view page - Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) -- PA-488 Mounted on the end pier:
Mounted at the base of the eastern abutment, facing Washington Blvd.:
Replaced 1891 high-level, iron and wood trestle at Larimer Ave which was was dismantled before building the concrete arch structure. The years preceding the construction of the Larimer Avenue Bridge saw many changes in the northeastern corner of the city. The majority of the eastern neighborhoods of Pittsburgh were annexed by the city in 1868. The Negley Run Valley provided glently sloped access to the Allegheny River for the people of East Liberty, but the valley cut a trench up to 150 feet deep and 600 feet wide -- impeding eastward expansion and settlement on the hilltops. While East Liberty and Wilkinsburg prospered on the plateau traversed by the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline, the land to the north lay undeveloped. A few roads managed to connect east and west near the southern head of the Negley Run Valley. Frankstown Rd and Penn Av, remaining traces of the British military roads, made the easiest course. Pucketty Road, the Indian name derived from the creek which formed part of Allegheny County's eastern border, ventured down one side and up the other in making the connection between East Liberty and towns on the Kiskimenetas River farther to the east. Not long after the death of the President, Pucketty Road was renamed in memoriam to Abraham Lincoln. An 1875 Hopkins map shows Fifth Av extending as far north as Lincoln Av in an apparent intersection. But at that time Butler St (the lower part of the current Washington Blvd) and Fifth Av did not connect. Butler St followed the current Negley Run Blvd to East Liberty. Pittsburgh City Council passed an ordinance to open Washington Blvd between Fifth Av and Highland Park on July 15, 1895. The 1904 Hopkins map shows the completed roadway, named Beechwood Avenue. Between Fifth Av and the Allegheny River, the roadway was renamed Washington Blvd and was part of an 11-1/2 mile drive which included Grant (now Bigelow), Beechwood and Washington Blvds in a promenade connecting downtown with Pittsburgh Director of Public Works Edward Manning Bigelow's two new parks (1889): Schenley and Highland. In 1903 the Pennsylvania Railroad built the Brilliant Cutoff along the eastern wall of the valley. The Brilliant Cutoff includes a five-span landmark Roman viaduct at Silver Lake and a three-arch span over Highland Rd at Leech Farm. The city of Pittsburgh replaced an earlier Lincoln Av bridge with its own stone viaduct of two spans. Though the PRR project was part of a larger plan to upgrade its lines with more permanent structures, it seems the city made an effort to encourage the parklike setting of the boulevard and surrounding valley. Between 1900 and 1910, there were a few more houses beginning to fill the hilltops near Larimer Avenue. Curiously, even after the construction of this Larimer Avenue Bridge in 1912, new housing only seemed to trickle into place. There are patches of infill homes from the 1920s and 30s. It seems part of the reason may be traced to the public facilities constructed on the northern reaches of the Lincoln-Belmar-Lemmington plateau. (The name "Lemmington" comes from a tract surveyed in 1771, patented to Hugh Alexander in 1788.) The 1872 Hopkins map shows shows large tracts of land between Negley Run and Shades Run owned by prominent businessmen of East Liberty, such as Hoeveler, Wilkinson, and Schoenberger. The 1904 map shows the land not owned by Schoenberger had been purchased by National Transit Co.-- perhaps in speculation of development. The remainder was and is occupied by St. Peter's Lutheran Cemetery. While constricting the expansion which might have followed the opening of the Larimer Avenue Bridge, the large, somewhat isolated, hilltop proved to be useful for such facilities as St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum and the city's Leech Farm Tuberculosis Sanitarium. Today the area includes the Veteran's Hospital, the Pittsburgh Job Corps Center, a US Army Reserve Center, and the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. Back in the Negley Run Valley, Silver Lake was filled in and converted to a drive-in movie theater. The theater was replaced by a set of industrial buildings. Any trace of a parklike ambiance is gone -- Washington Blvd is lined with a haphazard jumble of concrete block commericial buildings jammed in the narrow valley floor. Barely wide enough to be marked for four lanes, traffic blazes through at nearly double the speed limit. And circumstances have not been kind to the hilltop neighborhoods on each end of the Larimer Avenue Bridge. Residents struggle to recover from the pressures of urban neglect and decay; they try to maintain a sense of community amidst vacant lots and vacant buildings. On the weekend that photographs were being taken for this webpage, the Post-Gazette reported the discovery of a body below the Bridge. === view page - PRR Brilliant Cutoff stone arch viaduct view page - Lincoln Avenue stone arch viaduct over Washington Blvd === John F. S. Collins, Jr. in "Stringtown on the Pike" quotes from "Greater Pittsburgh" by Lee A. Gutkind: General William Larimer has the rare distinction of having an avenue in Pittsburgh, a township in Somerset County, PA, a street in Denver, a county in Colorado, and Fort Larimer in Arkansas, named in his honor. FIELD CHECKED: 1-Sep-2002 INFO SOURCES: field check; Kidney, "Pittsburgh's Bridges"; Collins, "Stringtown on the Pike" Submit info or inquiry - share some facts or ask a question. Introduction -- Nearby Structures Page created: Last modified: 23-Mar-2014; 04-Sep-2002 |
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