Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 258

Price Realized: $ 7,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(NEW YORK CITY.) Wide-ranging archive on New York bridge construction and maintenance. Hundreds of items (3.5 linear feet), various sizes, condition generally worn and sometimes soiled, particularly the work logs and photo scrapbooks. Vp, mostly 1886-1940

Additional Details

These extensive records covers the period when most of Manhattan's existing transportation infrastructure was built. The Williamsburg Bridge (completed in 1903) is particularly well-documented, with ten volumes of manuscript construction and maintenance logs dating from 1899 to 1909, as well as related correspondence, reports, and specifications from the same period. A series of 6 photo scrapbooks document smaller bridges such as the Boston Road Bridge, City Island Bridge, Eastchester Bridge, Madison Bridge, Riverside Drive Viaduct, and 145th Street Bridge from the 1910s and 1920s. The earliest dated item is an 1886 Brooklyn Bridge drawing titled "Rivetted Girders, Block A, New York Warehouses." Other unusual highlights include a thick file on the construction of a bomb carrier, 1941-45 5 artifacts including a measuring tape, clicker, and plumb level 4 volumes of printed contract drawings for the Manhattan Bridge, 1903-04 Numerous printed reports including the handsome "Selected Measures for the Partial Relief of Traffic Congestion in New York City," 1946 3 large artotype photos by E. Bierstadt, late 19th century, depicting iron bridges across the Bronx River (see illustration) and 9 original drawings for the extension and improvement of Riverside Drive, 1909. An inventory is available by request. Provenance: found by the consignor in the trash, after the demolition of a carpenter's shop under the Williamsburg Bridge circa 1988.