The Aqueduct Bridge became one of Washington's most spectacular ruins in the 1920s.

Built in 1833-1844 to carry a canal across the Potomac to Alexandria, the Aqueduct Bridge was originally a wooden trough atop stone abutments. In the 1880s, the trough was replaced by decking for horse and wagon traffic. Made obsolete by the neighboring Key Bridge, the Aqueduct Bridge was gradually demolished starting in the1920s. Today only one footer in the river and the stone abutment on the Georgetown shore survive.

The Georgetown abutment is a very early example of an overpass, in this case for an extension of Water (K) Street NW.
The shadowy skeleton of the Whitehurst Freeway creates a New-York-under- the-EL space.
Washington isn't much of a beach town, but the old bridge is one of the best places in town to catch a breeze and be glad you don't work in a glass tower in Rosslyn. Our great-grandparents understood this, too.

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