This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m exploring another photo from the DC Historical Society. This one is a a shot looking westward along the canal between what we now call 31st St. and Wisconsin Ave.
I say “what we now call” because the information for the photo identifies the location as “C&O Canal at 32nd St.” That is what Wisconsin Ave. was called from 1895 to 1905. Before then, it was called High Street. It was changed to 32nd St. in 1895 as part of the wider Georgetown street renaming. This was done in order to synchronize Georgetown’s streets with the rest of the District. (If you’re wondering: what we now call 32nd St. was called Valley Road during this period).
The date of the photo lists 1911-1915, i.e. after the street was officially renamed Wisconsin Ave. But many of the streets of Georgetown continued to be referred by both names over this period, as this 1919 map demonstrates:
What really caught my eye from this photo is not the photo at all but rather the description of the bridge as the “Bridge of Sighs”. That is not a sobriquet I’ve ever heard applied to that bridge. The term is familiar, of course. It was first used to describe an especially ornate bridge in Venice:
Apparently Lord Byron coined the term to reflect the fact that a glimpse of this bridge was the last thing prisoners saw before being led to the Venetian jails (supposedly).
Other bridges around the world have also earned that nickname, likely due to their resemblance to the Venetian bridge rather than some other apocryphal feature. They include the Bridge of Sighs in Cambridge:
Not to be outdone, their rivals in Oxford have their own Bridge of Sighs:
Essentially, if it’s a fancy, enclosed bridge connecting two buildings with an arched bottom, you got yourself a potential Bridge of Sighs.
But why would the Georgetown bridge qualify? It’s got a similarly shaped bottom, I suppose. But that’s it. And plenty of bridges have a similarly arched bottom. That’s pretty much a routine bridge design. It’s not enclosed and doesn’t connect two buildings. It’s just a bridge.
Anyhow, the poetic-yet-not-really-accurate name distracts from the one thing that makes this bridge unique: it’s the oldest bridge in the District. It was built in 1831.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
The title of this postcard was devised by the photographer who took the image, Willard R. Ross (1860-1948). Of the hundreds of his postcards that I have examined, this is an unusual one. Mr. Ross was always very journalistic in titling his images. Perhaps he felt a little whimsy with this one. Jerry A. McCoyPeabody Room Librarian2000-2024 Jerry A. McCoy, President Silver Spring Historical Society PO Box 1160 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-1160 (301) 537-1253 sshistory@yahoo.com Amazon Author PageMetro Connection WAMU Feature HistoryPinPaths to the Present SILVER SPRING VIDEO TOURMontgomery County’s Hidden Treasures – On the Right Track: Silver Spring’s Historic Train Station VIDEOSilver Spring: Then & Again BLOG FacebookSilver Spring Heritage Trail MISSION STATEMENT The mission of the all volunteer 501(c)(3) Silver Spring Historical Society is to create and promote awareness and appreciation of downtown Silver Spring’s heritage through sponsorship of educational activities and the preservation and protection of historical sites, structures, artifacts and archives.