A sleigh and a trotter are racing. The expanse of ice is amazing. Photo likely by Norman Burke in 1912.
OOPS!
Mistakes happen. This touring car found a soft spot in the ice while trying to cross the ice bridge. Norman Burke photograph.
Posted on 01/25/2025 1:38:53 PM PST by Impala64ssa
On a frosty January day in 1866, the Rockland County Journal published a whimsical tale that captured the imaginations of Tarrytown and Nyack residents. It cheerfully announced the “construction” of a bridge across the Tappan Zee in just 48 hours—a marvel so sturdy it could support pedestrians, sleighs, cattle, and even a multi-ton steam boiler hauled across from Thomas Magee’s machine shop.
But this wasn’t an ordinary bridge; it was nature’s handiwork—a sprawling ice bridge, spanning the 3-mile-wide Tappan Zee during the coldest winters. These remarkable formations became a much-anticipated spectacle, sparking annual debates in local newspapers about their arrival. Sometimes they appeared every winter, while other years saw decades-long gaps between their crystalline crossings. Ice bridges served as vital temporary highways in frigid years like 1873, 1888, and 1912, before the advent of icebreakers in the 1930s forever changed the river’s wintry dynamic
A Frozen Playground & Multi-Lane Expressway
When the ice bridge emerged, it became not just a means of transportation but a playground for people of all ages. It hosted walkers, skaters, cyclists, cars, horses, and even motorcycles on its meticulously marked route across the nearly three-mile-wide Tappan Zee. There were even instances of two black bears making the journey
“Streets and roads! Who cares for either, while we have the river? The ice has been remarkably even the whole of this winter.”
James Fenimore Cooper
The ice formed near the river’s edge or extended to the bottom in certain areas. Daily tides moved the ice, occasionally forming a seam between the river ice and shore ice. Volunteers strategically placed wooden planks during low tides, allowing cars to bridge the gap from shore ice down to the river ice. The ice bridge’s route began at a beach north of Main Street and featured distinct paths for walkers, horses, and cars.
Notable Stories Instances of ice bridges were documented in the years 1873, 1893, 1907, 1912, 1917, and 1920, each providing a mix of tragic and enjoyable tales. Frank Bartow, a Nyack taxi driver, offered rides to Tarrytown and Westchester County for $1, while adept skaters crossed in 13 minutes.
In 1912, Norman Burke, owner of a photography studio at 34 South Broadway, took photos from the ice including of a plane flying over. On a Monday in January, thousands of people enjoyed the ice as far as the eye could see.
A father-son duo skated from Nyack Beach to Croton Point, to Tarrytown light, and back.
A Nyack High School student engineered an “ice boat” using a Flexible Flyer sled with a sail, reaching exhilarating speeds but facing challenges on the return trip against the wind.
Dr. Waldron from Yonkers made the mistake of ignoring the wood onramp, instead using the end of the Main Street wharf. His car immediately sank. He was able to push through the canvas top of his Buick touring car and lift himself and his son out.
In 1907, when the ice bridge lasted until mid-March, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur S. Tompkins commuted daily over the ice bridge by horse and sleigh from his home in Upper Nyack to his office in White Plains.
Thrills on the Icy Racetrack A special horse racing track ran north parallel to the shore about a half mile out on the river, stretching from the ice bridge itself to Hook Mountain. Horses, wearing special spiked shoes, pulled small sleighs known as cutters. Races were common.
A sleigh and a trotter are racing. The expanse of ice is amazing. Photo likely by Norman Burke in 1912.
OOPS!
Mistakes happen. This touring car found a soft spot in the ice while trying to cross the ice bridge. Norman Burke photograph.
Wonderful thread. Know that area well but never heard of this.
We often think of our forebears as somehow different from us, a bunch of stiffs with no sense of humor. Seeing photos like these shows they were just as crazy and out for fun as we are.
“The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys”.
Oooy. Don’t go out onto a frozen river. My father from the Bronx would say this twice a year it seems.
You d
Go under and the current takes you away and that’s the end.
How could something be famous when very few have even heard of it?
I lived near Cayuga lake in upstate NY that winter. It froze over for the first time in 80 years and some guys had too much to drink and decided to drive across the lake to go home. I think they got a couple of hundred yards across before the ice cracked and the car slowly sank.
They weren't cited for DUI, but did get a fine from the Coast Guard for depositing trash in a navigable waterway.
. . . although, as you point out, periodically, the Hudson froze over anyway. My father grew up mostly on the west side of the river in Rockland County, NY. When he was in his teens in the late 1930s, he drove across the frozen Hudson and back in his dad's Model A. As I recall, he did this on more than one occasion.
Because, as we males periodically say, "It had to be done."
My Grandpa and Grandma honeymooned at Niagara Falls, in the Winter, great photo of them in front of frozen Falls. 1930 or 31...
The water was running under the ice...
Yup:
Tappan Zee
Triborough
Redskins
Indians
Fort Bragg
And in Boston: Yawkey Station.
The Yawkey family funded a multi million dollar cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital...among many other charitable acts. But Tom Yawkey,while owner of the Red Sox,was accused of racism in player selection so Maoists recently demanded that Yawkey Station (which is only feet from Fenway Park) be renamed.
My Grandpa and Grandma honeymooned at Niagara Falls
NIAGARA FALLS!! Slowly I turned....step....by....step....inch....by.....inch.....
They were near Goslow NY.
Nyuk, nyuk.
“...sparking annual debates in local newspapers about their arrival.”
At the family cabin in Northern Minnesota the bars would park a junk car out on the ice towards spring. Then bets would be taken guessing the day, hour, minute that it would sink through the ice. The bar kept some of the money, the winner took the pot.
At some point they probably had to start recovering the vehicles. I suppose it has been a long time since they’ve done it now with all of the regulations.
Although one could just make up a statue or something out of scrap metal and bet on that. (Probably would STILL be illegal.... Humpf.)
Sure, but what was the crime rate? Had to have been ASTRONOMICAL!
“There were even instances of two black bears making the journey“
Bears are up and about at a time of year when ice bridges are possible?
My dad’s side of the family was originally from the Albany, NY area. We got to tour a good bit of New York in the spring of 23 - Niagara, Finger Lakes, Hudson Valley, Catskills. Very impressive natural beauty.
Thank you for posting this. My family is from Nyack, I was raised in North Rockland.
My mom and her siblings would tell stories of the frozen river in the 40’s and 50’s.
Cars, skaters, sleighs and horses. It sounded like a snow globe.
I don’t know when it stopped freezing so hard, but IMHO it stopped due to chemicals and pollution in the water rather than global warming.
i used to ice fish by driving out on a lake with a strong current- pushed our luck one winter, drove out, super warm- had to cross a crack with boards across it- during hte night (we were smelt fishing) fog rolled in and it really warmed up- we decded to leave early- found the boards, but the gap had increased some- we made it across, but at the shore i had to really gun it to get to the shore as the ice had melted from shore-
Thinking back on it and thinking like your dad said “Go under and the current takes you away and that’s the end.” I NEVER went back on the ice on that lake- that was too close for me-
there has been global warming- but of course it’s natural- when we moved to our current location- the lake used to freeze absolutely solid every winter- we would have winterly snomobile races, and 100’s of trucks, with trailers would park on the ice- That all stopped around the late 1990’s - with most winters being so mild that even taking a snomobile out on the ice isn’t safe- had a person go through just a few weeks ago- every year a few go through now- never heard of that decades ago- unless they went through pushing it too soon to go out safely-
Even this winter, where Jan has been near 10 degrees av, there aren’t any vehicles other than recreational on the ice-
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