Centre Street Bridge (Newark)

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Route 158
Formed: 1953-?
New Jersey State Highway Routes
< NJ 157 NJ 159 >

The Centre Street Bridge was a double-deck bridge over the Passaic River in New Jersey.

The bridge connected Newark in Essex County and Harrison in Hudson County. The lower level was opened in 1834 and always carried rail tracks, while the upper level was built in 1911 for rapid transit and later converted to a road. The upper level was known as Route 158. At the west (Newark) end it ran just south of Saybrook Place, ending at Park Place. The east (Harrison) end was at Second Street between Essex Street and Taft Place (those streets carried traffic east from the bridge). Taft Place has since been renamed "New Jersey Railroad Ave".

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[edit] History

The lower level of the bridge was originally built as the main line of the New Jersey Rail Road, later part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Regular trains first ran over the bridge on September 15, 1834[1]. A cutoff around the bridge opened in 1870, and the old route became the Centre Street Branch, later being cut from the main line to the south. To accommodate its use by the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (now PATH) to reach the Park Place station, the bridge was realigned and rebuilt with an upper deck, which opened on November 26, 1911. On June 20, 1937, the H&M was realigned to Newark Penn Station, abandoning Park Place station and the upper deck of the bridge. The upper level was later converted to a roadway. It was designated Route 25AD due to the nearby Route 25A, now Interstate 280. In the 1953 renumbering the route became 158 (25A became 58). The bridge was demolished between 1981 and 1995.

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[edit] Sources

  • The New Jersey Department of Transportation supplied the information that 25AD became 158 but had no information about the location of said road. The location was given in an email from Myles Putman.