The abrupt closure of Memorial Bridge divide the communities, economy and culture of the Seacoast for the next three years.

Up until the 1920s, Portsmouth and Kittery were almost entirely disconnected. An old wooden bridge, traversable by horse and buggy and located near where the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge now stands, was the only physical structure linking the two communities. Employees of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard who lived across the Piscataqua River commuted to work by ferry. The Portsmouth waterfront was essentially a dead end spotted with bordellos where sailors caroused after work.But as the automobile industry expanded, so did demand to access more places by car. On the Seacoast, that demand included a direct link between the town centers of Portsmouth and Kittery.

But building a bridge across the port entrance would create another set of complications: ships were getting much bigger in the early 20th century.

Local planners had to deal with a tricky question, says Seacoast historian Dennis Robinson: “How do we get a bridge closer to the ocean than we’ve ever had and still get the ships underneath and get the new cars across?” The proposed solution, at the time, sounded impossible: “We’ll lift an 80-ton road in the air,” Robinson said. 

The Memorial Bridge opened on Aug. 17, 1923—almost exactly 88 years ago. Five-year-old Eileen Dondero, who would later become mayor of Portsmouth and for whom the City Council chambers are named, cut the ceremonial ribbon. 

“Suddenly, you can get from Portsmouth downtown to Kittery downtown, these two places that were more or less disconnected for 300 years,” Robinson said. 

It was also the first vertical lift bridge in the Northeast and one of the most advanced structures of its type in the United States. 

“It was extremely high-tech in its time,” Robinson said. “Now, here it is, the last surviving bridge of its kind—well, formerly the last surviving bridge of its kind.”

The Memorial Bridge closed permanently to motor vehicles on Wednesday, July 27. Inspectors determined that rapid deterioration to the bridge’s truss joints, gusset plates and floor beams made it unsafe for vehicular traffic.

“The bridge, in total, is in very poor condition,” said Jeff Brillhart, assistant commissioner of the N.H. Department of Transportation. “It’s just experiencing rust problems that are accelerating seemingly rapidly. ... We cannot take the risk to public safety given the condition of the bridge at this point.”

The closure does not come as a complete surprise. Memorial Bridge has long topped New Hampshire’s “red list” of bridges in dire need of repair. Officials from Maine and New Hampshire, which share equal ownership of the bridge, studied repairs as far back as 2002. They finally made tentative plans to rehabilitate the structure in 2009, but abandoned that idea when cost estimates for the project came in $15 million higher than expected. 

Instead, after much quibbling about how to fund the project, the two state agreed last year to construct a $90 million replacement, using a $20 million federal TIGER II grant toward the cause. 

That replacement is not expected to open until the summer of 2014, meaning it will likely be close to three years before a new bridge connects downtown Portsmouth and Kittery.

DOT officials had hoped to keep the existing bridge open as long as possible. But a quarterly inspection conducted on July 27 dashed those hopes. That afternoon, former DOT commissioner George Campbell abruptly announced the bridge was closing to motor vehicles for good. 

Memorial Bridge last underwent a major rehabilitation in 1982. Twenty years later, in 2002, the estimated cost of rehabilitating the bridge was just $9 million, according to DOT spokesman Bill Boynton. By 2009, that estimate had skyrocketed by more than 650 percent to $59 million.

“The costs of construction have just escalated dramatically over the last decade,” Boynton said. 

So why did the two states balk at spending $9 million nine years ago? Boynton said officials had to weigh that cost against funding priorities for the state’s many other red-listed bridges. As good as the price seems in hindsight, he said, there was resistance to spending such a sum when other bridges needed attention, too.

“There are a lot of bridges we’d like to get to sooner than later, but funding limitations are making that more challenging,” Boynton said. “It’s been a top priority for a long time, but there are competing priorities, as well.”

“I wish we had the $9 million price tag,” he added. 

The bridge presently remains open to cyclists and pedestrians, and the lift will continue operating to let ships pass underneath, for now. But it’s probably only a matter of time before the lift span becomes unsafe to operate. At that point, it will be removed, and the bridge will be lost to non-motorized traffic, as well. 

“We’re going to be watching (the lift) closely and see how things go in the next few months,” said Brillhart, who has taken over as interim commissioner since Campbell resigned to work in the private sector on July 28. 

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the closure could actually speed up the process of replacing the bridge. The contract to design and build a new bridge is still out to bid, although the field has been narrowed to three finalists. Those contractors say having Memorial Bridge closed to motor vehicles will make it easier and cheaper to deconstruct the bridge and get started on a new one. 

“In the past, the idea was to put out the contract so that the contractor would limit the closure of the bridge to as little time as possible,” Brillhart said. “Now the game is to get the thing done as quickly as possible.”

That comes as little reassurance to commuters who used the bridge every day, or to the many businesses located on either side. There are still two bridges crossing the Piscataqua from Portsmouth to Kittery—the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge on the Route 1 Bypass and the Interstate 95 bridge. But neither of those structures leads into the downtown heart of Portsmouth or Kittery. 

Michael Hebert, manager of Hebert Brothers Seafood in Kittery, worries that customers from the Portsmouth side will be reluctant to make the roundabout trip across one of the other bridges. He also worries that detour signs will prevent potential customers from driving past the shop. Hebert Brothers is located on Badgers Island, just a stone’s throw from the approach span to Memorial Bridge. 

“People come to a dead end and they don’t know we’re down here. It’s going to be difficult,” Hebert said.

Memorial Bridge has undergone several temporary closures for repairs in recent years, and nearby businesses suffered, including Warren’s Lobster House in Kittery. Owner Scott Cunningham said he expects the restaurant to remain busy through the summer tourist season, and he hopes locals will adjust to the closure by fall.

“I think that’s a great way to look at it and I hope that’s the case. However, I do know that when the bridge has closed the last several times in the fall or early wintertime, we did see quite a fall-off in business. So I guess time will tell,” he said.

Eides Ares, manager of AJ’s Wood Grill Pizza in Kittery’s Wallingford Square, said at least 50 percent of the restaurant’s business comes from the Portsmouth side of the bridge. The closure will also affect pizza delivery routes.

“Some people in Portsmouth probably won’t want to go all the way around,” Ares said. “It’s a little bit harder for us with deliveries because you have to go all the way around, and we’re concerned about people complaining their food’s taking too long or it’s cold. We end up spending more on gas for the cars. There’s all that.”

The state has posted several detour signs in Kittery that point customers to the downtown area. But Cunningham fears the signage isn’t enough to inform people of alternate routes and direct them to downtown businesses. 

“Just putting a sign up (that says) ‘detour’ doesn’t do it,” he said. “They’re going to have to do some really good signage to get people around and get them moving to the Kittery side.” 

Local officials in Portsmouth and Kittery are pondering measures to minimize the economic impact of the bridge closure. Kittery town manager Jon Carter said officials had already been anticipating the bridge’s eventual closure and have been in discussions with the state about improving signage. The abrupt closure in July will force them to expedite the process.

“Obviously, this has come very fast, so what we’re thinking through is getting some temporary signs up that can hold us until more permanent signs can get up there,” Carter said.

He will also attempt to work with businesses and facilitate discussions about marketing strategies to draw people downtown. The Greater York Region Chamber of Commerce will post detour information on its website. The chamber also offers maps of the region in its lobby.

“I don’t know what more we can do other than completely promote higher and harder than we have before,” said Holly Roberts, the chamber’s business manager. “This is a real stranglehold for those businesses that are right there by the bridge and the impact of it could be really detrimental if it’s not handled the right way.”

Businesses in Portsmouth could suffer, too. Daniel Wright, manager of The Rosa Restaurant on State Street, said many of his customers come across the bridge from Kittery. He noted that businesses on State Street suffered last year from extensive road construction that spanned most of 18 months.

“It’s just another blow,” Wright said of the bridge closure. “You just can’t get ahead of it.”  

But Wright does not think Portsmouth businesses will suffer as much as those in Kittery. He noted that The Rosa has been open continually since 1927, just four years after Memorial Bridge opened.

“We made it through the Great Depression and the economy this year. Hopefully we can make it through a bridge,” he said. 

Jeremy Colby, owner of Colby’s Breakfast & Lunch on Daniel Street, said past temporary bridge closures dampened business for about a week before customers adapted. But he’s mostly worried about the potential impact on other parts of town.  

“I’m more concerned about what it’s going to do to the rest of downtown, like the end of State Street,” Colby said. “I really do think it’s going to have a very negative effect on the area.”

The closure will be inconvenient for commuters, who now will have to use the Sarah Mildred Long or I-95 bridges. DOT spokesman Bill Boynton said past closures did not have much of a traffic impact on the other two bridges, although they could become congested on weekends during tourist season.

It could be even more devastating for cyclists and pedestrians. Neither of the other bridges from Portsmouth to Kittery allows bicycles or pedestrians. If Memorial Bridge’s center span is removed, there will be no way to walk or cycle across.  

Jon Carter said he’s been in conversations with the Maine Department of Transportation about possible alternative routes for cyclists, but they have not come up with a solution. One proposal was to add a pedestrian/bicycle path along the rail line that runs beneath the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, but the DOT nixed that idea, Carter said. 

Josh Pierce, of Seacoast Area Bicycle Routes, called Memorial Bridge a “vital link” for cyclists. It is part of the East Coast Greenway, a developing trail system from Maine to Florida, as well as the NH Seacoast Greenway. 

The contractor for the bridge project will be responsible for providing some kind of shuttle service for pedestrians and cyclists once construction begins sometime next year. If the center span is removed before then, the DOT will look into establishing an alternative form of transportation for pedestrians and cyclists, Boynton said.

Maine DOT commissioner David Bernhardt is expected to travel to Kittery on Aug. 3 to discuss the bridge closure, and Pierce said he would be there to inquire about options for cyclists. 

“There is not an alternative route short of riding your bike through downtown Dover,” Pierce said.

Even beyond its functionality, Memorial Bridge will be missed as a local landmark. Jeff Brillhart said the World War I memorial plaque on the Portsmouth side will be preserved, but he does not know what will become of the rest of the rusted steel structure. 

Dennis Robinson said the bridge is woven into the cultural fabric of the community. Over the last nine decades, it’s become an iconic structure, much like the North Church steeple in Market Square. It’s hard to imagine the waterfront without it.

“Architecturally, it’s very interesting, partly because it’s survived so long,” Robinson said. “It looks like an Erector Set from the past. It looks like historic Portsmouth. It’s the bridge we have in our minds when we think of Portsmouth.”