There are views of Rochester NY that our ancestors took for granted. Peering from atop some long-lost building or since-dismantled bridge. The balcony of the Elwood building, the catwalk structures clinging to the sides of the Main Street Bridge, places where now only a talented drone-pilot could take a shot.

Imagine yourself on an iron bridge, which hangs by block-and-tackle from the underside of a railroad trestle over the Genesee River; picture yourself slowly trudging along it during the frost of winter, one hand on the old stone abutment wall to secure yourself; your face feels the sting of Upper Falls mist from below. Along the wobbly railings, beneath the ancient railway girders thrumming with train traffic, until you reach the tall stairs leading you down to Commercial Street.

It sounds kind of insane, but this was the daily commute for hundreds of workers throughout decades of Rochester’s history. The unofficially-named McGinty’s Bridge offered pedestrians a handy cut-under for the Central Railroad tracks, allowing them to quickly pass from the Central Avenue bridge to the foot of Center [later Commercial] Street.

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1889

The Central Avenue bridge across the Genesee River was completed in 1883; by 1888, there were already demands for a footpath between the bridge and the end of Center Street [Commercial Street] travelling under the New York Central and Hudson train trestle. Who came up with this idea, I’m not sure; it seems extremely contrived as a solution, and yet it gained popular support among downtown workers.

The installation of this bridge was somewhat contentious. What if, posited Mayor Parsons, something were to get dropped from the Central tracks and it demolished the walkway bridge? Perhaps if another load of cattle were to plunge down the Upper Falls?

That’s right, one of the examples brought to caution against building McGinty’s bridge was that a full car of cattle might plummet from the trestle and damage the walkway or its pedestrians. This was no feverish exercise in hypotheticals, but was based off an actual occurrence in March of 1874: a train car packed with cattle broke loose from its train and was shoved off the tracks. Car and cargo alike fell into the river below, where several intrepid Rochesterians broke open the car to allow the trapped cows to freedom.

This act, as some readers might have predicted, simply compounded the problem as over a dozen head of confused cattle wandered into the stream of the torrid Genesee River, a stone’s throw away from the head of the Upper Falls. Not long after, one cow went over the falls. New plans were made: instead of allowing the cattle to fall willy-nilly, the men at the scene drove the cattle to fall over one specific side of the falls, entrusting that from there the cows would enter a whirlpool which would deposit their bodies in a spot more accessible for butchering. Above, men called out bids for the cattle’s meat.

All in all, a barbaric scene; one can imagine why the mayor Parsons would want to avoid bringing pedestrian lives into the equation. The Mayor’s disapproval was overcome by a petition of 2,000 workingmen’s names, and the bridge work went ahead.

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New Central Avenue Bridge

In 1909, the Central Avenue Bridge was condemned, and discontinued for streetcar use. Car traffic and pedestrian traffic along the northern side was still allowed.

In 1912, the outdated structure of the Central Avenue Bridge was dismantled and replaced with a new bridge. Presumably, the link-up with McGinty’s Bridge was reinstated.

In 1919, McGinty’s bridge was one scene of a brawl between union- and non-union workers. It’s a fittingly action-movie kind of setting for a fight, I could definitely see Indiana Jones popping a few punches on a flimsy iron bridge under a railroad bridge over a waterfall. Throw a plane in there, too, somehow. Or a cascade of cattle, that works.

The precarious position of McGinty’s bridge made it a prime “oopsie” spot for the confidently-drunk-pedestrian set, which numbered high in the populace at this time. A single wrong slip on the icy catwalk under the influence of liquor and one could find oneself entering the river just above the falls, and nobody had yet been lucky or drunk enough to survive that plunge.

In 1944, two employees of the A. B. Cowles Co. Inc. folding paper box company stumbled on loose stones on the increasingly decrepit bridge:

A. B. Cowles Co. Inc was located in the Gorsline industrial buildings at the corner of Commercial Street and the Genesee River:

Employees who worked in the Gorsline buildings would be chief among people who would travel along McGinty’s Bridge.

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The Inner Loop

Between 1960 and 1962, Central Avenue Bridge was heavily modified and widened to carry Inner Loop traffic over the Genesee River. Still, McGinty’s bridge remained.

Well-known Rochesterian artist Ralph Avery captured the bridge in rough, chunky gouache brushstrokes, for which he would win an award in 1965:

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McGinty’s Removal

Despite the aesthetic qualities of the view and the historical qualities of the bridge, the time eventually came for the retirement of McGinty’s bridge. Come 1972, one knowledgeable motorist took note that the old iron footbridge had been fenced off, both north and south–a sure harbinger of doom.

Sure enough, three years later in 1975, the call went out to contractors for demolition of McGinty’s Bridge.

As several of the above sources state, the leading theory regarding the name of McGinty’s Bridge was that it was named in reference to a song that was highly popular the year of its construction, “Down Went McGinty”.

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Still Traces Today

Some remnants of McGinty’s Bridge can be spotted if one wants to wander onto the Inner Loop a bit; the old access to McGinty’s Bridge from the Central Avenue Bridge would have been roughly around this spot, which is where I took the following photos from:

As one can see in the photo I took above, brackets remain bolted to the girders of the railroad bridge north of the Inner Loop; these were used as attachment points for the cable-stays of McGinty’s Bridge.

Below, I tried to frame the view which would have been seen from someone entering McGinty’s Bridge from the Central Avenue Bridge:

Below, the end of Commercial Street, where the stairs from McGinty’s Bridge used to be; the stairs would have been to the right, along the stone bridge abutment, as seen in the 1972 article.

So McGinty’s Bridge joined Rochester’s many lost bridges. How odd it is to think of the hundreds of feet which followed this way every day, a point now inaccessible and in mid-air. How many people peered over the edge and saw a view denied to you and I?

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