Spanhattan

Check out that beauty on the right!

Sure you know the bridge Woody Allen and Diane Keaton's characters in Manhattan look out on is the 59th Street Bridge (aka, the Queensborough Bridge, and now, appallingly, the Ed Koch Bridge). But can you name the other NYC bridge featured in the film?

It's the Triborough Bridge, more specifically, the Harlem River Lift span of the TB. If you Google "Woody Allen" and "bridge," you'll get thousand of hits for the scene under the 59th Street Bridge (and not a few misguided references to the Brooklyn Bridge), but about the Triborough, zilch.

It's been over a decade since I last saw Manhattan but I vividly remember a scene of Yale (Michael Murphy), Isaac (Woody), Tracy (Mariel Hemmingway), and Mary (Diane)returning from the Hamptons in Yale's beautiful Porsche 356 convertible. There's a gorgeous shot of upper Manhattan from the Triborough Bridge (main span). However, I was only able to find the screen grab (above) of them crossing the Harlem River Span on the way out of town (I think).

Lift and separate

The Harlem River Lift, at a mere 770 ft. across, gets little respect compared to its grander partner, the Bronx Kills Crossing, at 1600 ft. They were built in 1936 to allow easy passage from Manhattan and the Bronx to the Grand Central Parkway in Queens--and the soon to be completed BQE.