High Bridge. The High Bridge is the oldest bridge in New York City, having originally opened as part of the Croton Aqueduct in 1848 and reopened as a pedestrian walkway in 2015 after being closed for over 45 years. A steel arch bridge with a height of 140 ft over the Harlem River, it connects the New York City boroughs of the Bronx and Manhattan. The eastern end is located in the Highbridge section of the Bronx near the western end of West 170th Street, and the western end is located in Highbridge Park in Manhattan, roughly parallel to the end of West 174th Street. High Bridge was originally completed in 1848 with 16 individual stone arches. In 1928, the five that spanned the Harlem River were replaced by a single 450-foot steel arch. The bridge was closed to all traffic from the 1970s until its restoration, which began in 2009. The bridge was reopened to pedestrians and bicycles on June 9, 2015. The bridge is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Originally designed as a stone arch bridge, the High Bridge had the appearance of a Roman aqueduct. Construction on the bridge was started in 1837, and was completed in 1848 as part of the Croton Aqueduct, which carried water from the Croton River to supply the then burgeoning city of New York some 10 miles to the south. The bridge has a height of 140 ft above the 620-foot-wide Harlem River, with a total length of 1,450 ft. The design of the bridge was originally awarded to Major David Bates Douglass, who was fired from the project. The design then fell to the aqueduct's engineering team, led by John B. Jervis. James Renwick, Jr., who later went on to design the landmark Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, participated in the design. The Croton Aqueduct had to cross the Harlem River at some point, and the method was a major design decision. A tunnel under the river was considered, but tunneling technology was in its infancy at the time, and the uncertainty of pursuing this option led to its rejection. This left a bridge, with the Water Commission, engineers and the public split between a low bridge and a high bridge. A low bridge would have been simpler, faster, and cheaper to construct. When concerns were raised to the New York Legislature that a low bridge would obstruct passage along the Harlem River to the Hudson River, a high bridge was ultimately chosen. The contractors for the project were George Law, Samuel Roberts and Arnold Mason. Mason had prior engineering experience working on the Erie Canal and the Morris Canal. In 1864, a walkway was built across the High Bridge. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the bridge's current maintainer, described the walkway as the bridge's contemporary High Line. However, the bridge was not used for vehicles. In 1928, to improve navigation in the Harlem River, the five masonry arches that spanned the river were demolished and replaced with a single steel arch of about 450 feet. Of the masonry arches of the original 1848 bridge, only one survives on the Manhattan side, while some ten survive on the Bronx side. Use of the structure to deliver water to Manhattan ceased on December 15, 1949. By 1954, The New York Times reported that the commissioner of the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity said that the bridge entailed serious problems of maintenance and vandalism. Robert Moses agreed to take responsibility for the bridge, which was transferred to the Parks Department in 1955. There were incidents, in 1957 and 1958, of pedestrians throwing sticks, stones, and bricks from the bridge, seriously injuring passengers on Circle Line tour boats which passed under the bridge. Concerns due to these incidents supposedly contributed to the bridge being closed as early as 1960, although NYC Parks said that it was not closed until 1970, when high crime and fiscal crisis led to the contraction of many city services and public spaces. However, a reporter for the New York Times wrote that when he had tried to walk across the bridge in 1968, it was closed.