Roosevelt Island Bridge
Roosevelt Island Bridge

This mammoth drawbridge connecting Roosevelt Island to Queens was only completed in 1955 and since then has been maintained as the only vehicle entrance into Roosevelt Island. The bridge itself is a prime example of post World War II engineering, consisting of a pair of massive cable-pulley struts that rise up on either side of the East River, able to lift the several hundred foot long span of bridge up to allow for the passage of tall-masted ships through the river. However, the bridge itself rarely finds itself raised, as most river-going vessels tend to take the western fork of the river around Roosevelt Island.

Notably, the bridge was trapped in the raised position following the destruction of the Consolidated Edison Power Plant which once laid directly across from the bridge's Queens side. Now there is only the derelict crater where the entire power plant collapsed into itself, surrounded by a razor wire fence and no trespassing signs. In the time since Consolidated-Edison's destruction by terrorists in 2009, the bridge has been re-worked into the city's power grid and is functional once more, though few residents of Roosevelt Island are able to forget how effective the raised bridge was as a roadblock off of the island.

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