{"id":262674,"date":"2026-06-11T01:11:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262674\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T01:11:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:11:24","slug":"new-york-city-to-reopen-carroll-street-bridge-over-gowanus-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262674\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City to reopen Carroll Street Bridge over Gowanus Canal"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOWANUS \u2014 The historic Carroll Street Bridge in Gowanus will open on Monday after a five-year rehabilitation effort, city Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, the 137-year-old one-lane bridge, a New York City landmark, will be limited to pedestrians, cyclists and emergency vehicles.<\/p>\n

The overpass, a rare timber retractile bridge with a trapezoidal design, is one of only four of its kind in the United States. New York City is home to one other such bridge, on Borden Avenue in Queens, while Boston \u2014 where the design is known as a \u201cBoston drawbridge\u201d \u2014 has two others, neither of which is reportedly still operable.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Carroll Street Bridge in 1903. Photo: NYC Department of Records and Information Services<\/p>\n

Since 1889, it has moved diagonally to allow maritime traffic to pass through the Gowanus Canal. During the just-completed renovation, begun in 2021, the bridge had been closed to all vehicular traffic and locked in an open position.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur infrastructure tells the story of our city, and the Carroll Street Bridge captures both the maritime industry that built New York and the micromobility that will anchor our sustainable future,\u201d said Mayor Zohran Mamdani. \u201cWhile Gowanus may have changed quite a bit, our neighbors\u2019 love for the landmarks of our city hasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

A simple 107-foot span composed of two riveted steel plate girders, the shorter of which is counterweighted, supporting a deck structure, the bridge has a wood plank deck with one traffic lane and two bracketed cantilevered sidewalks.<\/p>\n

A small polygonal brick operator\u2019s house with round arches sits at the west end of the bridge. The bridge opens and closes like a drawer, instead of opening vertically or swinging open at a 90-degree angle like many other retractable bridges.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Carroll Street Bridge in 1903. Photo: NYC Department of Records and Information Services<\/p>\n

\u201cGowanus has been dramatically transformed in recent years as more and more New Yorkers call the neighborhood home,\u201d said Flynn said. \u201cAs the community becomes more residential, we are pleased that we could preserve this historic bridge while adapting our infrastructure to make it more welcoming to Brooklynites on two feet and two wheels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe newly renovated Carroll Street Bridge, with new restrictions barring truck and vehicular traffic, will help ensure that transition. This humble and restored old beauty of a bridge will endure among the new apartment towers and pedestrian esplanades \u2013 and proudly serve Brooklyn for a third century.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the rehabilitation, repairs were made to the Carroll Street Bridge\u2019s abutment and approach, and a new timber wearing surface was added.\u202f\u202fUnder the new traffic configuration, new signage and street markings will clearly indicate that the bridge is for pedestrian and cyclist use only, and no longer available for through vehicular traffic except emergency vehicles.<\/p>\n

Planters and other vertical elements will also discourage vehicular use. These final elements are expected to be put in place in coming days for the bridge\u2019s opening next week.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Carroll Street Bridge in 1903. Photo: NYC Department of Records and Information Services<\/p>\n

\u201cI strongly support this people-first vision for the bridge,\u201d said Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who represents Gowanus. \u201cThis outcome reflects years of advocacy from local residents and Brooklyn Community Board 6, who consistently told us they wanted the bridge prioritized for people, not through-traffic. In a neighborhood where so many residents walk and bike, this will strengthen connections across the canal and improve safety.<\/p>\n

Four bridges cross the Gowanus Canal, but traffic analyses showed that the Carroll Street Bridge was perennially the least busy of those crossings. Traffic counts taken during the renovation showed the temporary closure had no measurable increase in vehicular traffic counts over the three alternate crossings \u2014 at Union Street, Third\u202fStreet and Ninth\u202fStreet.\u202f(The other two, more heavily traveled bridges over the canal, along Hamilton Avenue and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, are not considered comparable.)<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Carroll Street Bridge. Photo: Lore Croghan\/Brooklyn Eagle<\/p>\n

The bridge opened in 1889 at a cost of $29,600 after construction by the New Jersey Steel and Iron Company, a prominent subsidiary of Cooper, Hewitt & Company. That company\u2019s leaders at the time, Edward Cooper and Abram Hewitt, were prominent New Yorkers and leaders in the city\u2019s political reform movement.<\/p>\n

Both challenged Boss Tweed and the Tammany machine and served respectively as New York\u2019s Mayor (Cooper in 1879-80 and Hewitt in 1887-88). The Cooper and Hewitt families are also linked by their later role in establishing the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, now operated in Manhattan by the Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n

Posted vintage signage atop the bridge notes a century-old statute that no \u201cperson driving over\u201d the bridge can travel faster than a walking speed \u2013 with a $5 fine. The Carroll Street Bridge was designated as a New York City landmark in 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GOWANUS \u2014 The historic Carroll Street Bridge in Gowanus will open on Monday after a five-year rehabilitation effort,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101920,464,20043,41779,9,24,34981,55,54,5325,56,82],"class_list":["post-262674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-carroll-street-bridge","tag-gowanus","tag-gowanus-canal","tag-mike-flynn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-department-of-transportation-nycdot","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-no-paywall","tag-ny","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}