{"id":245577,"date":"2026-07-17T05:48:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/245577\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T05:48:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:48:25","slug":"photos-show-explosive-demolition-of-pittsburghs-commercial-street-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/245577\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos show explosive demolition of Pittsburgh’s Commercial Street Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

A blast brought down the Commercial Street Bridge<\/a>\u00a0on Pittsburgh’s Parkway East on Thursday morning, leaving behind nothing but a cloud of dust and pile of rubble.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crews detonated the explosives around 8 a.m. on Thursday, demolishing the bridge<\/a>. The implosion had been scheduled for Wednesday, but PennDOT pushed it back because crews ran out of daylight to make sure everything was safe. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of the Parkway East between the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and Edgewood\/Swissvale exit has been closed since July 10. During the closure, crews will slide the new bridge<\/a>, which has been built alongside the old one, into place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Parkway East is\u00a0scheduled to reopen<\/a>\u00a0on Aug. 3, though that date could change.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can see photos of before, during and after the demolition below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"screenshot-2026-06-05-020351.png<\/p>\n

An aerial view from the KDKA Drone Team shows PennDOT crews working to prepare the new Commercial Street Bridge for the final concrete pour ahead of the complete closure of the Parkway East outside of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel.<\/p>\n

KDKA Drone Team \/ KDKA Photojournalist Brian Smithmyer<\/p>\n

\"snapshot-2026-07-15t174132-930.jpg<\/p>\n

The old Commercial Street Bridge was partially torn down before crews demolished it with an explosion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Photo: KDKA)<\/p>\n

\"snapshot-2026-07-15t174324-711.jpg<\/p>\n

People gathered in 90-degree heat to watch the explosion of the Commercial Street Bridge on July 15, but PennDOT ultimately postponed the demolition until the next day.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

(Photo: KDKA)<\/p>\n

\"snapshot-2026-07-15t174200-595.jpg<\/p>\n

A photo shows the Commercial Street Bridge before it was demolished.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Photo: KDKA)<\/p>\n

\"screenshot-2026-07-16-133845.png<\/p>\n

The Commercial Street Bridge was demolished on July 16, around 8 a.m.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

(Photo: KDKA)<\/p>\n

\"screenshot-2026-07-16-133900.png<\/p>\n

The blast sent out a cloud of dust and debris, but PennDOT said everything went well, and the new bridge was not damaged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Photo: KDKA)<\/p>\n

\"img-3305.png<\/p>\n

“It was really cool,” onlooker Kevin Lynch said. “It happened much quicker than you thought. You kind of heard the boom, you saw the smoke, and boom, it was gone. It was really different though.”<\/p>\n

(Photo: KDKA)<\/p>\n

\"dji-fly-20260716-084302-9-1784207743927-photo.jpg<\/p>\n

The Commercial Street Bridge has been demolished along the Parkway East as PennDOT prepares to slide in a new bridge, that has already been built.<\/p>\n

KDKA Drone Team \/ KDKA Photojournalist Brian Smithmyer<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A blast brought down the Commercial Street Bridge\u00a0on Pittsburgh’s Parkway East on Thursday morning, leaving behind nothing but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1730,3431,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-245577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-parkway-east","tag-penndot","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}