The Harrison Avenue Bridge

Designed by prominent engineer A. Burton Cohen, the Harrison Avenue Bridge was constructed between July 1921 and September 1922 by the Anthracite Bridge Company of Scranton. Residents from South and East Scranton overcame economic and neighborhood differences to form the "South to East Scranton Bridge Association," with the goal of lobbying the City for a bridge that would cross Roaring Brook and provide a direct connection between their neighborhoods. Similar in design to another A. Burton Cohen bridge, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad's Tunkhannock Viaduct, the Harrison Avenue Bridge was completed 20 years after its initial design due to funding delays. Erection of the monumental bridge was overseen by William Schunk, a native Scrantonian and the City's chief engineer.

The bridge consisted of three spans totaling over 406 feet in length. The southern and northern spans consisted of an elliptical filled spandrel arch that was 75 feet in length, while the central span was a three-centered, four-rib, open-spandrel arch that measured over 200 feet in length and rose approximately 125 feet above Roaring Brook. The bridge was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 under Criterion C in the area of engineering as an extraordinary example of a reinforced concrete open-spandrel bridge. In addition to engineering significance, A. Burton Cohen's design was similar to the minimalistic approach used on other reinforced concrete bridges, including the Tunkhannock Viaduct, during the early twentieth century. The original design had nominal ornamentation, made use of symmetry at the site by spanning the longest where the valley walls are the most steep, incorporated grooves on the columns to vary the surface texture, and featured plain abutment walls. The Harrison Avenue Bridge served as a monumental structure that the City of Scranton took pride in and was a symbol of the City's progressive era in the early twentieth century.

The Harrison Avenue Bridge had a history of structural problems that facilitated several major repair and rehabilitation efforts in the 1930s, 1940s, 1970s and 2000s. Beginning in 2014, due to its advanced state of deterioration, the historic Harrison Avenue Bridge was replaced in approximately the same location. The south end of the new bridge is located approximately 110 feet west of the south end of the original bridge. The north end of the new bridge overlaps the north end of the original bridge slightly.

[Images, clockwise from top center, read] , . View of the cranes erecting the metal frame for the central open spandrel arch, October 1921.

. Elevation view of the completed Harrison Avenue Bridge, September 1922.

. Image of vehicles and pedestrians using the completed Harrison Avenue Bridge, September 1922.

. Reed Iron Works Light Design #55.

. Image of metal frame of central and southern span, October 1921.

. Original drawing for the Harrison Avenue Bridge, east elevation, March 1920. The construction of the Harrison Avenue Bridge required 150 railroad carloads of gravel, 86 carloads of sand, 40 carloads of cement, 120 tons of steel for reinforcement, and 170 tons of steel for the temporary arch centering.

. Workers securing the metal frame for the northernmost elliptical filled-spandrel arch over the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, 1922.