A few years ago, new and young visitors to the park would have no idea that a magnificent miniature bridge crossed a spring run to the Little Lehigh. Certainly, such a stone construction wasn't necessary to cross the 24 inch waterway. It was built in a era of masonry art, fueled by the Great Depression, and funded by Roosevelt's WPA. Over the last decade, budgetary cutbacks and environmentalists demanding riparian zones, justified allowing it to be consumed by brush and saplings. In 2010, I persuaded Mike Gilbert, park department manager, to partially clear around the bridge. Although a tree now blocks it's southern approach, the bridge has been given a reprieve on it's destruction. Please join me April 6th, and learn about the hidden treasures of Lehigh Parkway.
This post is reprinted from April 1, 2013. If Mayor O'Connell and the park department cooperate with a program to preserve the WPA Structures, and allow access and view of the creeks with some openings in the Weed Wall, I will again give a tour of the park.
I love this little bridge and miss the tours of the park. I too hope that Mayor O'Connell will work to preserve the WPA treasures of Allentown.
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