Bird Island Pier - Table of Contents ......................... Buffalo Waterfront - Table of Contents
Bird Island Pier -
Group 2 (Peace Bridge)
Buffalo, NY
The Peace Bridge was named to commemorate 100 years of peace between the United States and Canada. Construction began in 1925 and was completed in the spring of 1927. On June 1, 1927 the bridge was opened to the public.
TEXT (Beneath Illustrations)
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Peace Bridge, including the Parker Truss |
Parker Truss |
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Note structure (backup water intake) in the Niagara River near the Peace Bridge |
Reserve water intake near the Peace Bridge |
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Tall structure at in the middle of the photo supports power lines that span the Niagara River and are supported by an identical structure in Buffalo. |
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The Miss Buffalo II on its daily afternoon cruise |
Looking north |
Peace Bridge The [Peace B]ridge, which took eleven months to complete,
is 4,400 feet long and 9,000 tons of structural steel, all supplied by Lackawanna's
Bethlehem Steel Company, were used in its construction. The breakwall (Bird Island
Pier, , from which we view the bridge, is also the western wall of the Black Rock
ship canal and the main span of the bridge crosses the canal at a height of 100 feet.
The canal assists the movement of boats at this point because of swift and uncertain
currents of the Niagara River as it passes over the Onondaga
Escarpment.
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After the Peace Bridge was constructed, the trestles and supports for the bridge caused the current to flow through the river at a much faster rate, and the Black Rock Lock restricted the flow of water in Black Rock harbor. Both changes may have had an adverse effect on the fishing.
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