history

Skinners Falls/Milanville Bridge

This vital interstate bridge, linking New York and Pennsylvania since 1902 is historic in part due to its association with that important spot on the river and the early rafting industry that shaped the region's economy. Unfortunately, this bridge has been closed to all users, including bicycles and pedestrians, since 2019 while PennDOT slow-boats this significant structure's restoration.

PennDOT will deliver a  public display meeting to the community served, featuring AECOM and PennDot (the two entities that will decide the fate of the bridge) on Thursday, April 25, 2024, 5 to 7 pm, at the Narrowsburg Union, 7 Erie Avenue, Narrowsburg, New York 12764.

See the Skinners Falls Bridge project page (PennDOT) for relevant documents on the bridge.

PennDOT is again accepting comments on this project. Comments may be emailed to skinnersfallsbridge@aecom.com by May 26.

 

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Photos from the last time around...
The Milanville Bridge (1902)
major repairs to a landmark truss bridge
connecting New York to Pennsylvania
The River Reporter, 1987-1992

Archive of public comments submitted to PennDOT (comments are AGAIN being accepted)

How WE can help save and rehab the Skinners Falls-Milanville bridge by Barbara Arrindell, The River Reporter, 6/20/2023

The extraordinary Milanville Bridge, by Ed Wesely, The River Reporter, 5/23/2018

Milanville-Skinners Falls Bridge by Wayne County Historical Society

pictures of 1987 Skinners Falls Bridge repairs (photos by Tom Rue)

walking around Skinners Falls, October 20, 2003 (photos by Tom Rue)

Pennsylvania Historic Survey nominating the Skinners Falls Bridge to the National Register of Historic Sites, 3/10/2001

Save the Skinners Falls Bridge Facebook group

Residents get skinny on the Skinners Falls Bridge, Chris Mele, 4/26/2024, Delaware Currents

Protesting residents to PennDOT: “Whose bridge? Our bridge!” WVIA Radio, 4/26/2024

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These documents are a reminder that political speech in this country, including in the local area, has a long been given wide berth under the free expression clause of the First Amendment, with sometimes with unseemly results.

This self-described "magazet" Friendly Chat, dated August 1934, was "published by Philip L. Kretz, Foot of Broadway, Newburgh, N.Y., to share with others thoughts that will promote mutual friendliness and right professional relations." A display advertises optometrist services provided by Dr. Kretz of Newburgh and Highland Falls. It is unclear if he authored the newsletter, or applied his brand to stock content which may have also been published by other businesses. Authorship is unattributed; no copyright asserted.

The title may allude indirectly to fireside chats by President Franklin Roosevelt in the same era. The home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park is a half hour's drive from Newburgh, of which FDR is quoted, "All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River."

Contents include poems and moral stories titled: The Weed, Rumors, The Lawn-Mower Society, Who Painted The House?, Grouchy Eyes, A Perfect Match, The Legend of the Happy Man, No Overtime, and Our Enemies.

Apolitical and commercial in its aim, the look and feel of Friendly Chat seem styled after The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, published a generation before by the famous Utopian socialist turned rugged individualist Elbert Hubbard of Roycrofters fame, who employed the craft of writing in the western town of East Aurora, near Buffalo, and went down on the Lusitania in 1912, an early casualty of the First World War.

At this point, I'm not able to google anything about Friendly Chat magazet or the good Dr. Kretz of Dutchess County. Perhaps, seeing this, a descendant or local historian will fill me in.

The above document reached me through channels that I don't recall, from my grandfather, Arthur H. Rue, who owned a bookstore in Detroit at the time it was published (quite a ways from Newburgh). No idea how it reached him, I presume he retained it, at least in part, because it is dated the month that my father, Bud, his second son, was born. I also have an copy somewhere around here dated December 1938, though the significance of that date (if there was any) is unclear to me.