Never heard of Hill Road? Introduce yourself by clicking this video to drive west over the first of its two old trusses connecting to Hugh Moore Park in an island between the Lehigh River and the Lehigh Canal.
Because I spent so much time on the island, you also get westbound photos, not just a video.
How did we get to the island? Here's how, eastbound over that same bridge (the Old Glendon Bridge) from Lehigh Dr.
You can see these signs in the last of the previous photos. They were removed within a month. Ha, you didn't catch me in time!
Looking north and south along the Lehigh River, catching the (new) Glendon Bridge on 25th St. in the latter.
Looking south (first photo) and north at the 1910 Hill Road Bridge.
While I'm on the island, check out these weird arch structures. I thought they were drainage culverts, but why? They're stuck at random places on the hills and nothing about them particularly conveys their utility for that purpose considering water can run off anywhere else it pleases.
The other intriguing find on the island is a metal cutout sign in a wooden frame, facing a small road intersecting Hill St. from the Lehigh Canal towpath SB.
Here's the wall on the east (Glendon) side of the river that supports Main St., definitely over a century old.
I walk over to the Lehigh Canal towpath to see the Glendon Bridge again (yeah, right), and when I turn north, poof! Another bridge! The counterpart to Old Glendon Bridge, this is the 1910 Hill Road Bridge. It certainly looks over a century old.
More towpath views as I walk north under the bridge. No, I didn't fall in.
Back up onto the island and still looking bridgeward. An old bridge being closed is nothing new, but it had just reopened a few months earlier in 2013 after $1.4 million in repairs, and then the county abruptly closed it again after a new inspector took a look. It hasn't reopened since. Makes you wonder about the old inspector and, if you live in Northampton County, where your tax dollars go.
The current weight limit on this bridge is about 10 tons less than it was before.
