On your left, look for the long steel bridge with greenish railings stretching over the Lehigh River-especially easy to spot today with the river ice and snow-dusted walkway in view.
This is the Philip J. Fahy Memorial Bridge-though around Bethlehem, you’ll hear it called “the Fahy,” or just “the New Street Bridge,” like it’s an old friend who never moved away. Stand here a second and listen... you’ve got the hush of the river below, the faint rattle of traffic overhead, and a crossing that has been reinvented more than once since the late 1800s.
Back in 1915, a private company ran a bridge here like a tiny business. You paid to cross-one cent if you were walking, two cents on a motorcycle, and five to fifteen cents for a car depending on how big and fancy it was. That’s roughly about $0.30, $0.60, and $1.50 to $4.50 in today’s money... which is still cheaper than most parking meters.
The current bridge went up in 1970, but its name is rooted in a grim night: August 29, 1969. Officer Phillip Fahy and Officer Merle Getz tried to stop a driver. The chase ended off Williams Street Extension, and the driver, Beverly Wells, stepped out and fired a shotgun, mortally wounding Fahy. Getz returned fire. Wells was convicted of murder and died in prison in 2004.
Time kept moving. In 2011 the sidewalk got closed after inspectors found serious deterioration, and in 2016 the bridge was rehabilitated-patched up, reinforced, kept in service.
And then, because Bethlehem also knows how to be Bethlehem... in 2024, Lehigh students hauled football goalposts over four miles and tossed them into the river right here. History, heartbreak, repairs, and a little college chaos-pretty much the full local recipe.
