0:20 In this video, we'll see three takes, shot sometime in the late 1940's, of the same car ride across the Macombs Dam Bridge in New York City.
0:35 Take one. Looking east on 161st Street in the Bronx. Above is the 161st Street stop on the Jerome Avenue line.
0:40 That's the Bronx County Courthouse, opened 1934, in the background.
0:50 Yankee Stadium is on the right. We'll see more of it in take two.
Turning left onto the bridge approach.
0:58 In the distance are the elevated tracks of the Polo Grounds shuttle line, a vestige of the Ninth Avenue Elevated.
1:25 The Chrysler and the DeSoto are part of the production and are following the camera car. But when another car cuts in unexpectedly from Odgen Street, both attempt to overtake it.
1:38 The first span goes over the New York Central tracks. The main span crosses the Harlem River.
1:50 Turning right onto the 155th Street viaduct. There's a crosstown streetcar going the other way, followed by a double-decker bus belonging to Fifth Avenue Coach Lines. The trolley crosses the bridge while the bus heads downtown.
2:45 Take two, back on 161st Street in the Bronx. Looking to the right, we get a good long look the original Yankee Stadium, the "house that Ruth built."
3:10 Again, turning left onto the Bridge approach.
3:20 Rising above the six-story apartments around it is 900 Grand Concourse, a ten-story apartment building that opened in 1923, the same year as Yankee Stadium did.
4:05 The Macombs Dam Bridge opened in 1895, and is a swing bridge. The swing span is just over 400 feet long.
4:20 Turning onto the 155th Street viaduct.
4:35 $1.25 for a car wash then is equivalent to about $15 in 2022.
4:45 Ad here for Father Divine, the charismatic and controversial African-American spiritual leader.
4:54 This pull-out formerly connected to the 151st Street station on the Ninth Avenue Elevated. The Ninth Avenue El closed in 1940.
5:0 0 Black Horse Ale was imported from Canada.
5:03 Take three.
5:13 The new Yankee Stadium now occupies this park.
5:35 Another brief view here of the Polo Grounds shuttle and the Anderson-Jerome Avenue station. The shuttle was discontinued in 1958 after the Giants left town. The route, including the bridge across the Harlem, was dismantled.
5:41 A view up Anderson Avenue here.
6:06 The large old building here belonged to the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless. Built in 1901, The Society left it in 1974. The building was extensively refurbished and is now the Highbridge-Woodycrest Center.
6:11 The old Ogden Avenue connector joins here, carrying the Third Avenue street railway's tracks onto the bridge. Buses would soon replace the trolley, and the connector will be replaced with an entrance ramp when the Major Deegan Expressway is built a few years later.Waiting for traffic at the end of the bridge.
7:00 Now headed up the viaduct for the third time. Sadly, the film ends before we get a glimpse of the Polo Grounds, which are just to the left.
7:27 Here is a view from the viaduct taken in 2022. The Macombs Dam Bridge and the viaduct still stand. The bridge was extensively refurbished about 20 years ago, and is the third-oldest major bridge in New York City.
P.S.: Some years ago, I made a video that included this area and mispronounced "Macombs." Hope I did better this time.
