Don, I remember you. You lived in brick house on Roosevelt Road and I think you had a cool set of electric trains. We rented a house on the same street from the Kellogg family for the summer in 1960 and 1961. Back then there were a number of boat yards and marinas on Riverside Avenue upstream of the bridge and it opened more often than it does now. Whoever was available would come from Peter's Market, Jerry's Hardware, the Chevron Station (I don't think it was Boccanfuso's yet), the firehouse, and other local establishments to turn the crank. Adam Starr
...back in "the day", before the bridge was reinforced, and an electric motor installed, the power to swing it open and closed was via the "Armstrong" Method. Typically four men would show up, unlock the four corners and lower a Really Heavy Steel Rod vertically, down through a hole in the Bridge Deck. Two seven foot long lengths of iron pipe were carefully guided, then inserted half-way into two holes in the Rod, located at ninety-degrees to each other, then came the 'Fun Part' ! One man would grab each end of an iron pipe and GROAN, as ALL FOUR would put their full effort into trying to get the Rod ( and the Bridge ), to slowly start to Turn !!! Once they got it going, it wasn't as difficult, but they still had to push HARD, for another 25? Turns, until the Deck was fully clear of the Saugatuck River Channel. Once the River Traffic had all passed through, they had to repeat the entire process, but in Reverse. - Don -
