Saxonburg Museum looks for solutions for rotting mini-bridge
SAXONBURG — For over half a decade, Saxonburg Museum curator Fred Caesar and the rest of the Friends of the Saxonburg Museum have been trying to save the original workshop where the borough’s founder, John Roebling, perfected the wire rope. Since 2017, the workshop’s foundation has been crumbling and causing the building to tilt to one side.
A study conducted by a local engineering firm estimated that it would cost roughly $250,000 to perform the necessary repairs. At its meeting Tuesday night, Sept. 19, Caesar told borough council that the workshop has shifted even further during the past two months.
“Indeed, the building is in a precarious and fragile state, and is continuing its now six years of noted shifting,” Caesar said.
The workshop building is not the only problem with the property.
Attached to the building is a miniature replica of one of Roebling’s masterpieces, the Brooklyn Bridge. At first glance, the bridge replica would appear to be in working order. A closer look, however, would reveal major flaws that Caesar has been trying to address for months.
These include cracks in the bridge towers, as well as rusting metal due to years without protective sealant. To make matters worse, the bridge replica was not built with rain gutters, and rainwater running off the edge of the bridge has only made the sinking foundation for the wire rope workshop worse.
“Some people have not really looked at it well,” Caesar said. “They take pictures, they stand there. But it is not in good condition where it is now.”
Unfortunately, the bridge replica does not qualify for any grants related to historical preservation, as it is not “historically significant” enough in its current state. The National Register of Historic Places does not allow anything to be attached to any structure marked as an official historic landmark.
“(The bridge) should never have been attached there,” Caesar said.
Both Caesar and borough council discussed ideas on how to move the bridge from its current home while still keeping it intact and allowing work on the adjacent wire rope workshop to proceed.
One idea which has been suggested is to move the bridge to a relatively unused side of the Saxonburg Museum. If placed there, it would be surrounded by a mural which would depict Roebling, along with possibly the cityscape of New York.
“Our goal is to have some sort of version of the bridge in some way,” Caesar said.
