Massachusetts Ave. Bridge (Harvard Bridge)

The Harvard Bridge (also known locally as the "M.I.T. bridge" or the "Mass. Ave. Bridge") carries Massachusetts Avenue (Route 2A) from Back Bay, Boston to Cambridge. It is the longest bridge over the Charles River.

Bridge length measurement

It has been suggested that the most interesting aspect of this bridge is the unit of length coined for it. The Harvard Bridge is measured, locally, in smoots.

In 1958, members of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity purportedly measured the bridge's eastern sidewalk by carrying or dragging the shortest pledge that year, Oliver Smoot, end over end.

Given that Mr. Smoot is five feet seven inches tall, measuring the bridge from the zero smoot mark yields a bridge length of about 620 m. Other sources give the length of the bridge as approximately 660 m, but that appears to pertain to the roadway rather than sidewalk on which the marks are inscribed.

Crossing pedestrians are reminded by length markers painted at 10-smoot intervals that the bridge is 364.4 smoots and one ear long. The marks are repainted twice each year by members of the fraternity.

The bridge deck was rebuilt on the existing supports between 1988 and 1989 to repair structural deterioration and address issues raised by the 1983 collapse of the similarly-designed Mianus River Bridge in Greenwich, Connecticut. Not only were the smoot markings repainted on the new deck, but the sidewalk was divided into smoot-length slabs rather than the standard six foot slabs.

After the failure of the Mianus River Bridge in 1983, the Harvard Bridge was shut down for inspection due to being of similar construction. Redesign and bidding kept the bridge closed and apparently inactive for two years, after which reconstruction began. Half the bridge opened around 1987 with the remaining half opening in 1989.

Harry Houdini performed one of his "well known escapes" from this bridge on May 1, 1908, according to a marker at the south-east end of the bridge.

According to M.I.T. legend, the bridge is so named, despite the fact that it is nearer to M.I.T. than to Harvard, because when it was originally constructed the state offered to name it after the Cambridge school that was most deserving. Harvard argued that their contribution to education was well-known, and thus they deserved the name. M.I.T. concurred, having analyzed the bridge and found it structurally unsound (and thus more deserving of the Harvard name than the M.I.T. name). Subsequently the bridge collapsed after five years of construction and was rebuilt, confirming the M.I.T. engineers' fears. The story is apocryphal. In fact, Harvard Bridge was first constructed between 1887 and 1890, whereas MIT only moved to its current location in 1916. It has never collapsed.

Street Map

Mass Ave. Bridge, 1976

The Harvard Bridge (also known locally as the "M.I.T. bridge" or the "Mass. Ave. Bridge") carries Massachusetts Avenue (Route 2A) from Back Bay, Boston to Cambridge. It is the longest bridge over the Charles River.

Photo 45, 1976

Harvard Bridge 2011

The Harvard Bridge (also known locally as the "M.I.T. bridge" or the "Mass. Ave. Bridge") carries Massachusetts Avenue (Route 2A) from Back Bay, Boston to Cambridge. It is the longest bridge over the Charles River.

Photo 02, Oct 2011

Mass Ave Bridge

Photo 55a, Mar 2012

Mass Ave. Bridge, aka Harvard Bridge

Photo 86a, Mar 2012

Harvard Bridge, aka Mass Ave Bridge

Photo 108a, May 2012

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