Andy Warhol Bridge

Pittsburgh has the “Three Sister Bridges”, which are three nearly identical bridges along the Allegheny River. The bridges the only trio of nearly identical bridges built in the United States. They are eyebar chain suspension bridge with through plate girders to stiffen them. The Three Sister Bridges were the first self-anchored suspension bridges, meaning that the towers are rigid and hold the eye-bars, so no additional anchorage is needed. This was done because the ground along the Allegheny River was too unstable to accommodate traditional shore anchorages for a suspension bridge.

The middle bridge of the Three Sisters Bridge is the Andy Warhol Bridge, which is also called the 7th Street Bridge. It was officially renamed for Warhol on March 18, 2005, as part of the tenth-anniversary celebration for the Andy Warhol Museum. It is the only bridge in the United States named for a visual artist.

The bridge was opened on June 17, 1926, and is the third bridge at this site. There is not a lot of information about the original bridge, but the second bridge was a two-span suspension bridge that was built in 1884. It had truss-bracing on catenaries holding two eyebar-chain cables in concentric arcs. This bridge was demolished because it did not meet the vertical clearance requirements that were set by the Secretary of War in 1915.

The Andy Warhol Bridge was originally painted green and grey. It underwent a makeover in 1975, when it was painted Aztec gold because the city adopted black and gold as its official colors. The bridge underwent another major rehabilitation that ended in 2017. This rehabilitation involved repairs to the structural steel, repairs to the concrete and masonry substructure, replacement of the concrete deck and sidewalks, replacement of the expansion dams, refurbishment of the pylons, repairs to the stairs on the downtown side, improvements to drainage, repainting of the bridge and handrails Aztec Gold, replacement of the navigational lighting, replacement of the street lighting to resemble its original appearance from the 1920s, and replacement of utility lines under the bridge.