The Washington Bridge , the next major extant bridge constructed in New York City after the Brooklyn Bridge, is a monument in the history of nineteenth-century American engineering . A steel and cast- and wrought-iron arch bridge with arched masonry approaches, the Washington Bridge was constructed over the Harlem River in 1886-1889 to connect the Washington Heights section of Manhattan with the Bronx . It has long been considered one of the nation’s finest nineteenth-century steel arch bridges, perhaps second only to the famous Eads Bridge in St. Louis of 1867- 74.