Erie Canal: Second Genesee Aqueduct - Rochester, NY
Posted by: 
sagefemme
N 43° 09.280 W 077° 36.628
18T E 287754 N 4781298
Also known as The Broad Street Aqueduct and Bridge. Appears from the plaque to also be registered as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and one of four major aqueducts constructed for the Erie Canal system.
Waymark Code: WMDCCN
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 12/24/2011
Views: 8
The first aqueduct to cross the Genesee River was built in 1921-22. (
visit link) Progress on the Erie Canal was stalled at Bushnell's Basin for two years by the challenges of crossing a Irondequoit Valley and the Genesee River, making Bushnell's Basin the western terminus of the Erie Canal for that period. "The Great Embankment" solved the first challenge, and the first aqueduct over the river solved the second. (
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This first aqueduct was leaky, and in 1937, as part of the Erie Canal expansion, plans were drawn to replace it. Construction on the second aqueduct took place from 1838-1842, which was wider and deeper than the first. The western end is at roughly the same location as the first, but the eastern abuttment is about 100 feet upstream of the original aqueduct landing.
"All the stone first mentioned (exterior) is to be cut to exact given dimensions or to patterns, and with such care and exactness that when laid, no cut stone joint is to be more than 1/8 [of] an inch thick, including the necessary mortar; and the stone composing the interior as above stated, is to be well hammer-dressed to parallel beds, and so laid as to have no more than 1/2 an inch joint, the whole to be laid in the best of cement mortar and grout, and to be imperious to water." (
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The stone in the above quote is compacet gray stone, quarried at bothe Lockport and Onondaga. The interior stonework on the spandrels and parapets was quarried directly from the river bed.
In 1927, a concrete superstructure, faced with stone, was constructed on top of the aqueduct for automobile traffic, after the the old Erie Canal route through Rochester was abandoned with the completion of the New York State Barge Canal in 1919. In 1973, the concrete bridge was reinforced with steel rods