Viaducts of Atlanta

Last updated

The Viaducts of Atlanta were mainly created in the 1920s to bridge numerous level crossings of roads and railroads.

Contents

Atlanta was founded as a railroad city. It had at least six major rail lines entering the city. There were many places where pedestrian traffic encountered that on the rails. The first viaduct was just the Broad Street bridge which was rebuilt several times, the second wooden version designed by Lemuel Grant in 1865 [1] but longer viaducts were coming.

Downtown viaducts

The Peachtree Street viaduct in front of the Peachtree Arcade, 1917 Peachtree Arcade.jpg
The Peachtree Street viaduct in front of the Peachtree Arcade, 1917

Other viaducts

In January 1913, the Bellwood Viaduct was opened, allowing car and foot traffic to cross the railroad line parallel to Marietta Street to the west side of the city via Bellwood avenue (now Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.). [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground Atlanta</span> Place in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

Underground Atlanta is a shopping and entertainment district in the Five Points neighborhood of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States, near the Five Points MARTA station. It is currently undergoing renovations. First opened in 1969, it takes advantage of the viaducts built over the city's many railroad tracks to accommodate later automobile traffic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harlem–125th Street station</span> Metro-North Railroad station in Manhattan, New York

Harlem–125th Street station is a commuter rail stop serving the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven Lines. It is located at East 125th Street and Park Avenue in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. The station also serves as an important transfer point between the Metro-North trains and the New York City Subway's IRT Lexington Avenue Line for access to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is the only station besides Grand Central Terminal that serves all three lines east of the Hudson River. Trains leave for Grand Central Terminal, as well as to the Bronx and the northern suburbs, regularly.

From its incorporation in 1847, the municipal boundaries of Atlanta, Georgia, United States, were extended repeatedly from a small area around its railroad station to today's city covering 131.7 square miles (341 km2).

The Macombs Dam Bridge is a swing bridge across the Harlem River in New York City, connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. The bridge is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downtown Atlanta</span> Central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The largest of the city's three commercial districts, it is the location of many corporate and regional headquarters; city, county, state, and federal government facilities; Georgia State University; sporting venues; and most of Atlanta's tourist attractions. It measures approximately four square miles, and had 26.850 residents as of 2017. Similar to other central business districts in the United States, it has recently undergone a transformation that includes the construction of new condos and lofts, renovation of historic buildings, and arrival of new residents and businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodruff Park</span> Park in Atlanta, Georgia

Woodruff Park, named for Robert W. Woodruff, is located in the heart of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The park's 6 acres (2.4 ha) are north of Edgewood Ave, between Peachtree Street NE and Park Place NE. The park includes a fountain, a performance pavilion, and several monuments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harlem River Lift Bridge</span> Bridge between Manhattan and the Bronx, New York

The Harlem River Lift Bridge is a vertical lift bridge carrying the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line, Harlem Line, and New Haven Line across the Harlem River between the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx in New York City. The average weekday ridership on the lines is 265,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metropolitan Street Railroad</span> Streetcar system in Atlanta (1882–1892)

The Metropolitan Street Railroad was an early streetcar company in Atlanta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Park Avenue main line</span> Railroad line in New York City

The Park Avenue main line, which consists of the Park Avenue Tunnel and the Park Avenue Viaduct, is a railroad line in the New York City borough of Manhattan, running entirely along Park Avenue. The line carries four tracks of the Metro-North Railroad as a tunnel from Grand Central Terminal at 42nd Street to a portal at 97th Street, where it rises to a viaduct north of 99th Street and continues over the Harlem River into the Bronx over the Park Avenue Bridge. During rush hours, Metro-North uses three of the four tracks in the peak direction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Downtown, Atlanta</span>

South Downtown is a historic neighborhood of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. South Downtown is primarily home to city, county, state, and federal governmental offices, which prompted the city to adopt signage declaring the area "Government Walk." Although much of South Downtown is dominated by surface parking lots, the neighborhood was passed over during the redevelopment boom of the 1960s and 1970s that resulted in the demolition of much of Downtown's architecturally significant buildings. The result is myriad buildings from the 1950s and earlier that retain their historic structural integrity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilmington Rail Viaduct</span> United States historic place

The Wilmington Rail Viaduct is a series of fills and bridges, about 4 miles (6.4 km) long, that carries the Northeast Corridor through the city of Wilmington, Delaware, above street level. Constructed between 1902 and 1908, the structure consists principally of fills supported by heavy stone retaining walls, punctuated with plate girder bridges over streets, and augmented by a few sections of brick arch viaduct. Its construction is typical of the Pennsylvania Railroad's architectural practices at the time, and the viaduct has been documented by the Historic American Engineering Record and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) as part of a series of grade crossing eliminations along the Northeast Corridor, the elevation of the rail line necessitated several other changes to rail infrastructure in Wilmington, including the construction of the Wilmington Shops at the east end of the viaduct, and the construction of the Wilmington Station and adjacent Pennsylvania Railroad Office Building along the elevated right-of-way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gray's Ferry Bridge</span> Vehicle and railroad bridges in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Gray's Ferry Bridge has been the formal or informal name of several floating bridges and four permanent ones that have carried highway and rail traffic over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. The bridge today is a four-lane divided highway bridge, built in 1976, that carries Grays Ferry Avenue from the Grays Ferry neighborhood on the east bank, over the river and the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks, to the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Kingsessing.

Marietta Street Artery is an officially defined neighborhood of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, part of the West Midtown area of Atlanta, also known as the "Westside."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piedmont Hotel</span> Building in Georgia, United States

The Piedmont Hotel was a hotel in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Construction on the building, which was designed by architect Willis F. Denny, began in 1901, and the building was opened to the public in January 1903. Considered one of the finest hotels in the city at the time, numerous famous guests stayed at the hotel while visiting Atlanta, including three presidents of the United States. Unlike other Atlanta hotels, the Piedmont sought to emulate the style of hotels in the northeastern United States and was commonly referred to by locals as "our New York City hotel". In 1929, the building went through an extensive renovation overseen by the architectural firm of Pringle & Smith. In 1965, the owners of the hotel agreed to sell the property to the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, who planned to build a new office building on the site. The hotel was demolished that year and in 1968, the Equitable Building was completed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Gulch (Atlanta)</span>

The Gulch is an area of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, which is unbuilt but envisioned as the site of major development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peachtree Arcade</span> Shopping arcade in Georgia, United States

The Peachtree Arcade was a shopping arcade in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The building, modeled after the Arcade in Cleveland, was designed by Atlanta-based architect A. Ten Eyck Brown and was located between Peachtree Street and Broad Street near Five Points. Construction began in 1917 and was completed the following year. Located in the city's central business district, it was very popular with citizens, functioning as an unofficial "civic center" for the city. However, by the 1960s, the arcade was facing increased competition from shopping malls located in Atlanta's suburbs, and in 1964, the building was demolished to make way for the First National Bank Building, a skyscraper that, at the time of its construction, was the tallest building in both Atlanta and the southeastern United States. In 1993, the American Institute of Architects named the building as one of Atlanta's most notable landmarks to have been destroyed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlanta Zero Mile Post</span> United States historic place

The Atlanta Zero Mile Post is a stone marker which marked the terminus of the Western and Atlantic Railroad in Atlanta, US. It was located in a disused building in Downtown Atlanta, within the Underground Atlanta Historic District, under the Central Ave. viaduct, between Alabama and Wall streets. The Zero Mile Post was recognized with a historical marker by the Georgia Historical Commission in 1958 and entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It was delisted in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">110th Street station (New York Central Railroad)</span> Closed train station in Manhattan, New York

The 110th Street station was a station located on the Metro-North Railroad's Park Avenue Viaduct in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. The station was built by the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad as part of an agreement with the New York City government. It was located at Park Avenue and 110th Street.

The Bleckley Plaza Plan was a proposed engineering project in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Proposed by architect Haralson Bleckley in the early 1900s, the project would have seen numerous railroads in downtown Atlanta covered by a large public plaza that would have run from the Georgia State Capitol to Terminal Station, covering much of The Gulch. The project, while considered at numerous points in the early 1900s, never came to fruition.

References

Notes

  1. Galloway, Tammy H. "Lemuel Grant (1817-1893)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 10 January 2014. Web. 26 February 2015.
  2. Garrett, Vol.II, p.388-389
  3. Garrett, Vol.II, p.409
  4. A detour no more. Atlanta Journal-Constitution September 29, 2007.
  5. "$25M downtown Atlanta bridge redo primed for October completion". August 23, 2018.
  6. Garrett, Vol.II, p.306
  7. Hoffman, p.61
  8. Garrett, Vol.II, p.849
  9. "First trip made across viaduct", Atlanta Constitution , January 24, 1913, p,5