Venue: Wards Island Bridge
Town: Manhattan, US

The Wards Island Bridge, also known as the 103rd Street Footbridge, is a bridge crossing the Harlem River between Manhattan Island and Wards Island in the Manhattan borough of New York City that does not allow vehicular traffic. The vertical lift bridge has a total of twelve spans consisting of steel towers and girders. It carries only pedestrian and bicycle traffic. On the Manhattan side of the river, the bridge is located at East 103rd Street, between exits 14 and 15 of the FDR Drive. The bridge is accessible from the East River Greenway and a pedestrian overpass across the FDR Drive to the East River Houses apartment complex in East Harlem. The bridge connects to the southwestern corner of Wards Island and provides access to the many playing fields and scenic waterfront of Randall's Island and Wards Island Parks. Wards Island Bridge is open to pedestrians and cyclists 24 hours a day, year-round. Prior to a 2010-2012 renovation, the bridge had only been available for use from April through October during the daytime. The first known bridge to Wards Island was a wooden drawbridge between East 114th Street in Manhattan to the northwest corner of the island. The bridge was built in 1807 to serve a cotton business run by Philip Milledolar and Bartholomew Ward and lasted until 1821, when it was destroyed by a storm. Pedestrian access to Randalls and Wards Islands was established with the opening of the Triborough Bridge by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority in 1936. Although plans to construct a separate pedestrian bridge to provide Manhattan residents better access to the new Wards Island Park were developed by Robert Moses in 1937, construction of the bridge did not begin until 1949. The design of the East River Houses in Manhattan, which were constructed from 1940 to 1941, included a requirement to provide room for an approach to the proposed footbridge. Designed by Othmar Hermann Ammann and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the footbridge was origi