Longfellow Bridge Research Paper

Introduction

In this lesson, we explore the history, construction, and restoration of the Longfellow Bridge that connects the cities of Boston, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts across the Charles River.

Named for a Love Poem I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o’er the city, Behind the dark church-tower. These lines, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1845 famous poem The Bridge, describe a moment of his frequent journey across the Cambridge Bridge separating his home from that of his future wife, Fanny Appleton. Little did Longfellow know that these words, part of a proclamation of love unrequited for seven years until Fanny accepted his proposal of marriage, would be forever immortalized in naming one of Boston’s greatest landmarks, a grand replacement for his famous walkway, long fallen into disrepair. Though an act of the Massachusetts legislature in 1927, the Cambridge Bridge, also called the West Boston Bridge, gained its final and official name as the Longfellow Bridge.

Commission and Construction

In 1898, the cities of Cambridge and Boston in Massachusetts formed the Cambridge Bridge Commission between

As the needs of the city changed, so too did the bridges over the Charles River. Commissioners, however, designed the Longfellow Bridge to meet their current needs as well as the anticipated needs caused by continuing growth. Completed in 1907, the bridge supported wheeled transportation, streetcars, pedestrians, and pedestrian travelers while enhancing the aesthetic city with another landmark. The recent renovations efforts, taken with careful consideration of historical construction procedures, will restore the functionality of the bridge and preserve its beauty, perhaps allowing it to inspire more love poems as its predecessor did for Henry Wadsworth