Three Sisters, Pittsburgh
Thursday, 3rd July 2008 by Alex Turnbull
No, you're not seeing triple - these are Pittsburgh's Three Sisters, a trio of nearly identical suspension bridges erected side by side over the Allegheny River.
Rachel Carson (Ninth Street Bridge)
All three were built between 1924 and 1928 by the aptly-named American Bridge Company, and they are the only trio of nearly identical bridges, as well as the first self-anchored suspension span bridges in the United States.
Andy Warhol (Seventh Street Bridge)
The 9th and 7th street bridges are named for Pittsburgh natives Rachel Carson and Andy Warhol, whilst the 6th is named for the baseball player Roberto Clemente, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose home field is the nearby PNC Park baseball stadium.
Roberto Clemente (Sixth Street Bridge)
Thanks to Google's Street View feature, as well as being able to see what these bridges look like when you're on them, we can also see what it's like to cross the 6th street bridge and see the other two.
Thanks to Nitehawk. Read more about the Three Sisters at Wikipedia.
See our previous posts Double Bridge Shadow, Double Drawbridge and Three Sisters, Australia.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
Oh come now, Roberto Clemente never played at ‘PNC Park.’
@Adam – correct, he couldn’t possibly have played there as he died in 1972, and PNC park wasn’t opened until 2001! You win the grand prize!
Which is… uh, having me update the post?
😀
At 447, Pittsburgh has more bridges than any city in the world, including Venice. We’ve also got more steps (13 miles), many of which are actually named streets. (For example, View Placemark (40.4324,-79.9578) is the intersection of Romeo and Frazer Streets. You can’t see it for the trees but this is one set of steps intersecting another. There is a street sign there.) It also has the the steepest measured road in the US, Canton Ave., a 38% grade on cobblestones. (View Placemark (40.4105,-80.0301)) Pittsburgh also has the shallowest commercial building in the world, the so-called Skinny Building at the corner of Forbes Avenue and Wood Street. (View Placemark (40.4402,-80.0009)) It’s only 5’2″ wide.
@ Geis: I’m all for local patriotism and all that … but 447 bridges inside the city limits isn’t all that much. Hamburg has more than 2.300.
Here is another fantastic site about bridges in Allegheny county.
http://pghbridges.com/index.htm
Pittsburgh doesn’t come up much on Google Sightseeing, so all I have to say, is GO STEEELERS!!!
Oh, btw, living here, I can count the bridges. There aren’t that many. Some cross rivers, some cross valley and neighborhoods, but not 447. I guess most of them actually just are sideway extensions of roads to handle the steep terrarain.
And, please, lets not bring up that whole Pittsburgh/Hamburg debate again. We already know who the winner is…
A bit different from the Three Sisters in Edinburgh then . . .
According to a count listed in “The Bridges of Pittsburgh” by Bob Regan, the count is 446. (I was writing from memory so I apologize for exaggerating by one bridge.) 21 are owned and maintained by Allegheny County, 126 by the City, 186 by PennDOT, 42 by the Port Authority and 71 by railroads. These numbers were calculated using municipal documents, GIS data, aerial surveys and utilizing the National Bridge Inspection Standard definition of a bridge being 20 feet in length or greater.
And as for Hamburg, I’d be curious to know what definition they have for a bridge that they have over 2500.