City - Cincinnati, OH The City of Cincinnati 1906 Postcard

Colourized photo from 1906 Original title: A View from Suspension Bridge, Cincinnati, Ohio Photographer: Detroit Publishing Location: Riverside Dr, Covington, KY The city in front of us is Cincinnati, Ohio, but we are standing on the roof of some building in Kentucky. It really isn't much of a view though. On the left is the Roebling Bridge, built in 1865, designed by John Roebling. He was the same designer of he Brooklyn Bridge (but died before seeing its completion). The Roebling bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the world. Spanning 1,057 feet over the river and 2,253 feet between the two anchorages. The towers are 230 feet tall and weigh 32,000 tons each. It cost $1.8 million to build, which is roughly $30 million today. It took 10 years to build and only 2 workers died making it. When it was opened it cost 3 cents to cross and a little more if you were on a horse. You may be looking at this and wondering why it isn't blue. Well it wasn't a blue bridge, it was actually brown, more specifically Spanish Brown. Though it was painted black during a major overhaul in the 1890's, and then green, it went back to brown till 1976. Where the city wanted to repaint the bridge, removing paint down to bare metal and making the bridge red, white and blue for the bicentennial. But it was later decided to make it a Verdigris blue, and from that point on this bridge was blue. This bridge is also known as the "Singing bridge", its made up of metal grating (which I assume helped with the manure issue), but when a car goes over it, it sort of sings. Some people come here to go over the bridge just to listen to that. The sidewheel riverboat was named "The City of Cincinnati", it was 300ft long, it was a packet steamer built by the Howard's Shipyard & Dock Co, in Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1898. If you look closely you will see it was used for both people and cargo. And from a few images I saw of the inside, it had a ballroom. The ship was around for about 20 years when it got caught in an ice floe and and was damaged pretty badly. The city in the background for the most part, is industrial. You don't see the skyline that you would see today. Right now there is a nice park, and its mostly commercial. The only building that still stands today is that church on the far right.