Hudson River from Bear Mountain Bridge
— — the long view the bridge was built to hold.
Not only on a wall.
“The view south from the Bear Mountain Bridge deck, where the Hudson squeezes between Bear Mountain and Anthony's Nose and bends toward Peekskill. When the suspension span opened in 1924 it was briefly the longest in the world, a private toll bridge built in eighteen months by a Harriman family company. The river here is part of a glacial fjord that runs all the way up from New York Harbor. In late October the slopes above the abutments turn russet and gold, and the water reads slate beneath them. from the studio
Hudson River from Bear Mountain Bridge, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Bear Mountain Bridge carries U.S. Routes 6 and 202 and the Appalachian Trail across the Hudson River between Bear Mountain State Park on the west bank and the town of Cortlandt on the east, about 45 miles north of New York City. The suspension span measures 2,257 feet in total length with a main span of 1,632 feet, and the deck sits roughly 155 feet above mean water. Opened in November 1924 as a private toll crossing built by a Harriman-family corporation, it was briefly the longest suspension bridge in the world before the Benjamin Franklin Bridge surpassed it in 1926.
The Hudson at this point is technically a tidal estuary, not a freshwater river. Salt water from New York Harbor reaches roughly to Newburgh, and the daily tidal range below the bridge runs about three feet. The narrow channel between Bear Mountain and Anthony's Nose was carved during the last ice age, when a finger of the Laurentide ice sheet deepened the existing valley into a fjord. The water reads slate when overcast and a colder blue under autumn sun, with strong tidal currents visible from the deck.
The bridge is free to pedestrians and cyclists, with a narrow sidewalk along the east side that the Appalachian Trail uses to cross the river. The west landing sits inside Bear Mountain State Park, with parking near the Bear Mountain Inn; the east landing connects to Route 9D and the trail up Anthony's Nose, a short steep hike of about 700 feet that opens a long view back across the deck. Peak foliage in the Hudson Highlands usually arrives in mid to late October, and weekend traffic across the bridge slows accordingly.