Bronxites, Manhattanites celebrate the 175th anniversary of The High Bridge, NYC’s oldest standing bridge

A birthday celebration on Tuesday united Bronxites and Manhattanites, but it wasn’t for any particular person. Instead, it was the 175th birthday celebration for the city’s oldest standing bridge, The High Bride, which connects the Highbridge section of the Bronx to Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood across the Harlem River.

The afternoon’s festivities and merriment took place on both sides of the 1,450-foot pedestrian bridge, with both the Bronx and Manhattan sides meeting in the middle as Plena music — a traditional Puerto Rican music and dance — was in the air.

The High Bridge has been through many phases since its 1848 construction, when it was originally the centerpiece of the Old Croton Aqueduct that carried Croton water across the Harlem River from the mainland to Manhattan in pipes beneath its deck.

In 1864, a walkway was soon built across the bridge, mirroring its modern day usage and acting as a pedestrian walkway between then-rural northern Manhattan and the Bronx. In the century that followed, the aqueduct’s decommissioned status and poor maintenance led to its closure in 1970, before being reopened in 2015.

Washington Heights resident Julio Sanchez told the Bronx Times the bridge is where he met his now-wife, Alexandria, in 2018 on a Tinder date. And on the opposite end of that spectrum, Highbridge resident Donte Tolliver experienced “his worst breakup” a year ago after a walk across the bridge.

Tuesday’s celebration was also a first for the borough presidents of the Bronx and Manhattan — Vanessa Gibson and Mark Levine, respectively — who said it was their first collaboration…