Rip Van Winkle Bridge Collection

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: MSS 2022.0006

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection comprises a selection of documents, plans, and blueprint maps related to the construction and early operation of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. Of note are blueprint plans in flat file drawer 30 showing structural components of the bridge prepared by the Frederick Snare Corporation, General Contractors in partnership with the Harris Structural Steele Company of New Market, New Jersey in 1933. Also of note are files related to the condemnation proceedings required to acquire the land and rights of way for the bridge.

Dates

1933 - 2012

Biographical / Historical

The Rip Van Winkle Bridge is a cantilever truss highway crossing bearing State Route 23 which connects the east and west banks of the Hudson River between Greenport, Columbia County and Catskill, Greene County, New York. Plans for the construction of a bridge connecting Greene and Columbia Counties were deliberated for roughly a decade prior to the construction of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, with Coxackie considered briefly as a possible site in 1926.

In 1930 Assemblyman Ellis W. Bentley of Windham, New York offered a bill for the allocation of funds to conduct a study for a crossing over the Hudson River. This bill was vetoed by Governor Franklin Roosevelt and an alternative option was proposed by which a public benefit corporation would be formed to conduct the business of building and operating such a crossing. The New York State Bridge Authority was thus organized and given the task, with construction beginning in 1933 and culminating with the opening of the crossing on July 2, 1935.

Extent

.3 Cubic Feet (Oversize Folder) : Blueprint plans and maps ; Various

Additional Description

Arrangement

This collection is partially processed and comprises the following: a folder of maps and blueprints; a folder of news clippings, reports, and ephemera; a folder of legal proceedings. Materials reside in one box and one flat file.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Many items in this collection were recieved from unattributed donors over the course of the last fifty years and most recently removed from a general reference vertical file. All legal documents and maps are courtesy of the late Judge George J. Pulver and the law office of Pulver and Stiefel.