SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE

Hokitika Guardian, 13 August 1929, Page 5

SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE

PROGRESS OF THE WORK.

SYDNEY, Aug. 1

Although Sydney Harbour bridge is not likely to be completed before the end of .1931' city businessmen are trying t)o awaken interest in the proposed Empire Exhibition in Sydney to mark the opening of the giant structure. - •

In a few weeks anothcr%anel of the arch that js to bestride the water will be completed. Thousands of peop.e will find 'the bridge a delightful promenade on summer nights. Looking out over the harbour—a sublime view itself under a soft, velvety, star-spangled sky —and over the whole of the city and its environs, they will be afforded a walk of about a mile in all across the bridge and over its long approaches. There i.s a strong belief that among those unfortunates with suicidal intentions, the bridge will be grimly popular., Those who now want'to make a rendezvous with Death throw themselves, in many cases, over the not--ious “Gap” at Sydney Heads, but the poor devils are likely to make' a far cleaner job of it from the deck of the bridge, for they will have a sheer drop into the harbour of about 190 ft. with no rocks below to batter their bodies into an unrecognisable mass, as is now often the case at the “Gap.” The bridge will be a mighty structure—far more colossal than it looks at present from the ground. Peering up' at it, one gets an imperfect sense of; its dimensions. Each of the two main towers, for example,, on the northern and southern foreshores of the harbour, will be bigger than a city block of buildings. The main roadway over the bridge for motor and other ordinary traffic will be a- foot wider than the city’s widest thoroughfare—Macquarrie street—and that is quite apart, of course, from;the two ten-feet footways and wide tracks for the trains. There will not be any trams over the bridge.