Bridging the Hudson: The Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge and Its Connecting Rail Lines

The Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge, opened in 1889, was the first bridge of any kind to be built over the Hudson between New York and Albany.  This book is a comprehensive history of the bridge and its connecting rail lines that together enormously impacted the transportation of freight in the Northeast.  More oriented to the human story than the technology, it tells of the men who built the bridge and its related lines and ran trains over them, the maintenance workers who cared for it, the rowers who raced under it, and the hoboes who camped under its approaches.  Carleton Mabee explains why the number of trains crossing the bridge gradually declined and how, after a fire in 1974, the bridge was abandoned.  He recounts how since then, friends of the famous structure developed imaginative proposals for rehabilitating it which eventually bore fruit in the form of the famous Walkway Over the Hudson, the longest elevated pedestrian bridge in the world, which we enjoy today.

Includes an introductory message by the late Congressman Maurice Hinchey.