New York Central Railroad 69th Street Transfer Bridge

The structure looming over the water at the foot of West 69th Street is a 69th Street Transfer Bridge, a piece of industrial machinery that once acted as the heartbeat of Manhattan's freight supply. Completed in 1911, this massive steel apparatus served as the northern terminus for the New York Central Railroad's 60th Street Yard. It functioned by bridging the gap between land-based railroad tracks and specialized, track-laden barges known as car floats. Tugboats would pull these car floats up to the bridge, and the structure would then be lowered to align its rails with those on the barge, allowing freight cars to roll directly from the tracks onto the water. Continue