Community Corner

Ninth Street Bridge to Open Now Only in Memories

The drawbridge, first opened in 1933, will be demolished to make way for a new fixed span.

The old Ninth Street Bridge closed to traffic forever on Monday night, and perhaps fittingly, the scheduled 8 p.m. event was delayed by several hours.

Generations of Ocean City commuters and visitors had come to curse the flashing lights and clanging bells that signaled a drawbridge opening and the always-untimely delay that followed. In her old age, the Ninth Street Bridge became increasingly known for even longer delays, particularly when the drawbridge got stuck in the open position in hot weather. The malfunctions often caused traffic to be detoured to other bridges.

The 78-year-old bridge will be demolished in work that starts this week to make way for a towering new span that's part of a new elevated causeway connecting Somers Point and Ocean City. Traffic moved to an already-completed span adjacent to the old bridge.

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The Ninth Street Bridge and three other bridges along the causeway opened on Aug. 19, 1933, after three years of construction at a cost of $2 million (the new causeway will be completed in six years at a cost of $400 million).

"I hope and believe that in the near future all resorts in South Jersey will be connected with the mainland by such magnificent bridges as Ocean City has," Congressman Isaac Bacharach of Atlantic City said at dedication ceremony, according to an account in the Ocean City Sentinel of Aug. 21, 1933.

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In what may have been an omen, the dedication ceremony had been delayed.

The chairman of the Highway Commission showed up an hour late, and the ribbon-cutting was canceled because of the delay and the threat of a downpour.

But memories of the Ninth Street Bridge are not all about delays. What child didn't get goosebumps hearing the the telltale hum of car tires rolling over the metal grates of the closed drawbridge? The sound  signaled that the beach and Boardwalk were near.

And like record albums, encyclopedias and other quaint notions we have to explain to our children, will they look at us funny when we explain how a little mechanical arm dropped down, and the whole roadway cleaved and lifted up to let boats pass by.

The new causeway, when it's completed in 2012, will include two tall fixed-span bridges that will let all boat traffic pass easily beneath. Unlike the old causeway, the new one will include a special bicycle and pedestrian lane. It will feature fishing piers, boat ramps, scenic overlooks and walkways.

It won't include the built-in excuse that mainlanders late for their summer jobs have always leaned on: "The bridge was open."


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