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Photos Courtesy Of Websource One & John Lampman
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The Zenas King Bowstring Bridge Preservation Project is now complete. This unique circa 1870 structure has become a main focal point for Newfield's rich history and exciting future.Presently tax deductible donations are being accepted by Historic Ithaca, 109 W. State St. Ithaca, N.Y. 14850, to insure this priceless piece of our heritage remains protected.........Karen VanEtten
Above photos taken mid-late July 2003
Above photos taken August 23, 2003
The foundation is in place and the preparations on the bridge itself have started. The road leading to the bridge has been graded and a rolled layer of crushed stone is in place
Crews from the Tompkins County and Newfield Highway departments put into place a bow truss Thursday morning on the bridge located on Beach Road in Newfield. The 130-year-old bridge was built by the Cleveland industrialist, Zenas King, in his patented bowstring-style. The Beach Road bridge is only one of five bowstring-style bridges in the state.
NEWFIELD -- The bowstrings were attached Thursday on Newfield's Bowstring Bridge -- the next step in a process that could have the pedestrian bridge ready for use by the end of November.
When it reopens, the bridge will be one of two connecting Bank and Main Streets. The Newfield Covered Bridge is the other. According to town councilwoman Karen Van Etten, who has worked to save the bridge since 2000, the bridge will become the property of Newfield once it reopens. Once it becomes Newfield's, Van Etten said, the bridge will become eligible for National Historic Register listing.
The bridge was built in 1873 and is one of five bowstrings left in New York state, Van Etten said. The bowstrings attached yesterday, which were taken from the old bridge, are cosmetic and do not provide structural support. Over the last couple of days, three huge metal girders have been put down by a crane. According to Van Etten, the project could be complete by Thanksgiving.
Van Etten hopes that the bridge, along with Newfield's historic Covered Bridge -- another late 19th Century structure -- will attract tourists.
"Thousands of people travel on Route 13 every day," she said. "This gives them another reason to stop."
The beams and refurbished bridge are in place. The crew is busy welding, and preparations are being made for the opening later this month (see article from the Ithaca Journal below)
Above photos taken December 2, 2003
Finally the completion (and very impressive to me)....I only wish I had been there to see the first to walk across the new (old)span, The crew did a great job and I walked across the very solid structure for the first time in the 20+ years that I have lived in Newfield. I hope that all that visit this page enjoy it as much as I did building this page........Dave Austen...... Webmaster NBA
3/18/2004
Newfield granted ownership of bridge
Much-disputed pedestrian bridge changes hands with $7,500 deal
By MICHELE REAVES
Journal Staff
NEWFIELD -- A small bridge that provides the only pedestrian walkway between Main and Bank streets in Newfield has a new owner.
The Zenas King Bowstring Arch Bridge is now the property of the Town of Newfield, Edward Hooks, the town's attorney, told board members Thursday night. Tompkins County officials agreed to turn over ownership to the town as long as the town contributed up to $7,500 in labor and services for work that still needs to be completed.
County and town workers will finish jobs like adding railings and drainage holes as well as other minor work on the green iron bridge at the end of Beach Street.
Lois Beach and her husband, David, watched as workers tore down and rebuilt the bridge that was built in the 1870s. The Beaches and their neighbor Ellen Gooley, allowed work to be done on their property, Lois Beach said.
"We just felt that it's been there for so many years it needed to be looked at and replaced," Beach said of supporting the project. "Everybody was using it. It was just a real downer when it was closed off. It was the only safeway to get from one side to the other."
The bridge was closed last year for safety reasons. It had been used as a walkway for Bank Street residents, especially school children.
Beach, who works for the Newfield School District, also used the bridge to get to work. She said she tried walking across the Covered Bridge one time to see what it was like. The Covered Bridge, a nearby vehicular bridge connecting Main and Bank streets, has one lane for traffic and no safety features for pedestrians.
"You can't get through there fast enough," she said.
The town paid for all of the materials to refurbish the bow bridge, which cost more than $37,533.47, partially paid for with a donation of $17,695.40 from Historic Ithaca, residents and other groups. Tompkins County officials contributed $11,700 to the project, which went over budget.
The Beach Road Bridge Committee, which spearheaded fundraising for the project, is still looking for grant money to complete their plans, said Anne Chernish, a member of the committee.
The committee needs about $2,600 to pay engineer fees and a plaque for the bridge. They are also looking for funds to turn about 140 feet of land along the stream into a park area.
The land to the right on the Main Street side of the bridge was bought by Peter and Lois Williams in November 2000. Lois Williams is a descendant of a former Newfield mill owner, Chernish said. The Williams couple want to deed the property to the town and have it used as a park area. The committee will need about $30,000 to pay off bills and create the park, Chernish said.
The park fits into Newfield board member Karen VanEtten's ideas of promoting tourism in the area. She hopes the bridge will add foot traffic along Main Street.
"We're trying to get it to grow," she said of the downtown area.
Van Etten plans to request that the bridge be added to the National Historic Register, like the Covered Bridge. She said that having two historic bridges within a quarter mile of each other could draw tourism in the area. Her plan is to one day have walking tours.
The bridge, originally built in the 1870s, is one of the oldest of its kind still standing, according to the King Bridge Company Museum Web site. Zenas King, an Ohio industrialist, patented his idea for a Bowstring Arch Truss in 1861.
NEWFIELD, N.Y. - The hardest period in Karen McGuire Van Etten's life was not her four years in the Air Force or her struggle as a single mother more than a decade ago.
Those were easy, Ms. Van Etten said, compared with the years she has spent trying to persuade local government officials here to preserve a little historic bridge on her street.
"I've never even preserved fruit," she said. "But I just couldn't let it go. People told me to give up, but I refused. I felt like Norma Rae or something."
In December 2000, Mrs. Van Etten, who is now married and a stay-at-home mother, began trying to place an 1870 bowstring arch bridge - one of only five such bridges left in New York that were made by a leading manufacturer of the time, the King Bridge Company of Ohio - on historic preservation registries.
Local government officials inspected the bridge and found decay in the abutments that would require extensive, costly repairs. Hoping to avoid paying for repairs, Tompkins County and Newfield disputed ownership, which must be established for the registry application.
Later, town and county officials suggested replacing the bridge with a new and, some argued, more cost-effective model.
So, Mrs. Van Etten, who felt that the bridge would never have been in danger if she had no called attention to it, began working an estimated three hours a day for the next three years learning about bridge preservation, lobbying politicians, raising money and explaining her campaign to reporters.
That kind of single-mindedness is crucial, said Allan King Sloan, the great-great-grandson of the King Bridge Company's founder, who helps efforts like this across the country as a way to preserve his family's heritage.
Even then, bridge enthusiasts may not succeed.
In Rochester, a local photographer, Richard Margolis, has been trying to save another King creation, the Hojack Swing Bridge, which is much larger and crosses the Genesee River as part of an unused railroad track.
Mr. Margolis agreed that the battle has become part job, part obsession. Although he has done much of what Mrs. Van Etten did, the Coast Guard gave a second warning last month that unless it was put to use, the 50-foot-high steel swinging bridge would have to come down.
A local developer who wants to create a trolley system said he could incorporate the Hojack bridge in his plans, but they are still unfinanced.
"It's clear we don't have a success story yet," Mr. Margolis said. "But I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't call it a lost cause."
Saving a bridge is much like building one, Mr. Sloan said. Both require a great deal of support. "There are examples of people all over the country, people who are trying to save these old bridges," he said. "They need to yell and scream, get public officials to help them out and raise money."
In Canton, N.Y., a group raised about $170,000 in grants and donations to save another bowstring bridge, one that crosses the Grasse River, which flows north into the Saint Lawrence River.
Hearing of the unusually high amount raised, "bridge nuts" from around the country have been calling the project's organizer, Varick Chittenden, for advice. He credits community support and a theme larger than simply saving a bridge.
"Canton is a community with a real sense of history," Mr. Chittenden said. "There was a lot of enthusiasm for the project, and we're going to use the bridge as part of a cultural heritage park."
Still, the bridge preservation campaign has been going on since 1998 and reconstruction has yet to begin, though Mr. Chittenden said he hoped it would be done this summer.
In Newfield, Mrs. Van Etten, who is also a Town Board member, changed minds and won support by showing that the groups would not buckle by sharing the $77,000 cost of repairing the bridge.
She secured grants from Historic Ithaca and a fund run by Mr. Sloan's family. She raised $7,000 through car washes, bake sales and 5-cent returns on soda bottles. "People from trailer parks sent money," she said.
Tompkins County and the town of Newfield did some of the work.
Peter Williams, a descendant of a founding mill family in Newfield, donated money and land so the town could build a small park nearby and increase the bridge's importance.
Sharing the burden is essentially how a bowstring bridge works, too, Mr. Sloan said. The strings that curve around the bridge redistribute the weight so that a center support beam, which in this case would be in the Cayuga River, is not required, making the bridge more beautiful and efficient.
Mrs. Van Etten, who organized a rededication ceremony on June 5, said that she hoped the park would be built soon, and that she thought the bowstring bridge and a covered bridge nearby would attract tourists. "This is by no means the end," she said. "Maybe people weren't happy in the beginning, but it can't be anything but good from now on."
Originally Published June 27, 2004 in The New York Times
