Sydney

The Sydney Harbour Bridge

The interesting years are the ones when it did not reach. Until August 1930 the bridge was two steel arms built out from opposite shores toward a gap, and that is what these photographs are of — the arms still apart, cranes working at their upper ends, a liner steaming through the opening between them.

The gap closed on 19 August 1930. Dorman Long's two creeper cranes had crawled outward along the top chord since 1929, laying their own track as they went and lifting each steel piece into place; Lawrence Ennis, the director of construction, brought the halves together at a quarter past four that afternoon, watched the steel contract again as the evening cooled, and made the final closure at ten at night. The bridge did not open until 19 March 1932, so everything you see here with a gap in it is more than a year from being a road.

Sam Hood went back to the arch as the halves crept together, and from the North Shore about 1931 he stood close enough to get cottages, trees and a grassy slope into the foreground — the suburb living underneath the largest thing in the country while it was assembled overhead.

The approach spans are the part nobody remembers. They rise on stone-faced piers above a rock cutting on timber staging, with a fenced roadway running past the works as though it were ordinary municipal business, which for the people on it is what it was.

By the 1950s the arch is scenery: a foreshore park, a paling fence, a grassed slope down to the water, and the thing itself across the harbour behind wharves and moored boats. Look for the crown while it is still a narrow slot of daylight.

8 works
Unjoined arches of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, March 1930 — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1930
photograph·1930·Dawes Point

Unjoined arches of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, March 1930

Sydney Harbour Bridge, Both arches well out over water, March 1930Star Photo Co.
Northern approach of the Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction, Milsons Point — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1905
photograph·1905·Milsons Point

Northern approach of the Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction, Milsons Point

Sydney Harbour Bridge, Early workings to Northern approachStar Photo Co.
Sydney Harbour Bridge approach spans under construction — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1923
photograph·1923·Milsons Point

Sydney Harbour Bridge approach spans under construction

State Library NSWSam Hood
Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction, the arch nearly joined, c. 1930 — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1930
photograph·1928·Milsons Point

Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction, the arch nearly joined, c. 1930

Hood Collection part II, Box 044, nos. 053-068; Box 46, nos. 001-009 : Sydney Harbour Bridge constructionSam Hood
Sydney Harbour Bridge arch arms before joining, 1930 — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1930
photograph·1950·Milsons Point

Sydney Harbour Bridge arch arms before joining, 1930

Hood Collection part II, Box 080, nos. 001-029 : Harbour Bridge; Corner store bread war; Mosman Rowing Club; Pyrmont Bridge accident; Circular Quay; Broderick School; Imported beer and liquor; Bare IslandSam Hood
Sydney Harbour Bridge arch almost complete, seen from the North Shore — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1931
photograph·1931·Milsons Point

Sydney Harbour Bridge arch almost complete, seen from the North Shore

State Library NSWSam Hood
Southern approach of the Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction, 1928 — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1928
photograph·1910·Dawes Point

Southern approach of the Sydney Harbour Bridge under construction, 1928

Sydney Harbour Bridge, Early workings to Southern approach. May 1928 - December 1928Star Photo Co.
Sydney Harbour Bridge across the water from a foreshore park — photograph, from Sydney Harbour Bridge, circa 1950
photograph·1950·Dawes Point

Sydney Harbour Bridge across the water from a foreshore park

Sydney