November: National Historic Bridge Month
In 2006, November was declared National Historic Bridge month by historicbridges.org. The reason for doing this was to spread awareness that year after year historic bridges are demoed. During that time period, many historic bridges were lost forever. Since then, a dramatic rise in appreciation for historic bridges has led to many bridges being saved, rehabilitated, repurposed, and reopened to traffic and/or pedestrians. This is happening all across the US. Why can’t NY make it happen?https://historicbridges.org/info/hbawareness.htmSince June there has be no dialog that we are aware of about our bridges in Essex or Clinton County. We are once again asking, pleading, begging, for an effort to be made to save our bridges in Keeseville by our County Officials. Please do not abandon our beloved historical structures. We want to work WITH our county officials, and not against them. These bridges are in center of our village, not on back roads. They are attractions for our tourists. They are links that connect the two sides of our town. They are our heritage, and engineers from across the country have told us they can be saved.The value of our bridges individually is impressive. Together as a group there is nothing like them. They tell a story of Civil Engineering during a very important developmental/experimental time period.The Upper Bridge is the last remaining through truss built by Murry, Dougal & Company in the world. Our Swing Bridge is one of two remaining suspension bridges built by the Berlin Iron Bridge Company of CT. The Old State Road Bridge is one of Three double span continuous bridges remaining in the world…and the only one sitting atop a 65 foot waterfall at a major tourist attraction.We have 2500+ signatures. This should not be ignored. In Keeseville there are yard signs posted literally everywhere saying “Let’s work together to find a solution”, yet we hear nothing.Important Questions:1) Why are Essex and Clinton County not supporting one of the largest tourist attractions in the area by maintaining this one of a kind historic bridge, located at one of the most important scenic vistas in Upstate NY?2) How can the Upper Bridge with estimated 1900 daily crossings per day (2008) be just closed and ignored for 15 years? Yet lesser bridges with only 9 or 27 daily crossings selected to be rehabilitated?3) How can bridges that are on the National Historic Registry of places, and identified as Civil Engineering Landmarks and have the highest historical structure rating that can be given to this type of bridge be orphaned and abandoned? They should be held in the highest of regards.4) Why are countless letters of support from the community, phone messages, emails, letters from state representatives just ignored?Old bridges can be restored and reopened. We need to have real dialog on what each county can do to make this happen. That dialog needs to happen with County Officials, Town Officials, community members and local non-profit groups that can help. It needs to be coordinated with everyone. Currently this is an embarrassment to upstate NY, but that could change at any point with involvement from our county officials. “Welcome to Keeseville: Home of the Three Historic Bridges…One is closed, one hasn’t been maintained in decades…Oh and by the way…just down the road we have several other historic bridges at a major tourist attraction but one of those is closed too”Note: The tone of this message is to convey the frustration at our County Representatives for lack of progress developing a plan to fix our bridges. This tone could very easily be changed to convey a positive message that our county officials are helping…if they decided to do just that.
