Gothic Bridge - Central Park

Gothic Bridge - Central Park, April 7, 2010
Rob Hickman, Kyle Petersen, Andy Peterson, Keith Nelson, John Wyffels, John Jessmon

Gothic Bridge is the third of the great Central Park cast iron bridges around the Reservoir. In the first decades of the Park, before auto traffic, there was a great deal more recreational equestrian traffic in the park, and so the builders endowed the bridle paths with quite a number of arches and bridges that would enable pedestrians to pass over them. The triangular spaces at each end of Gothic Bridge (called spandrels) were given curved ironwork suggestive of Gothic church architecture of the Middle Ages, hence the bridge's name. The graceful curves and oval vault make Gothic one of the most distinctive bridges in the park and one of the first that photo editors turn to when they require an evocative Central Park scene.

Location: take park path over bridle path north of The Reservoir, south of the tennis courts and South Meadow at approximately 94th Street. Built: 1864 by Vaux and the Cornell Ironworks. Made of cast iron and steel.