They don't make bridges like this anymore

People who cross the Neponset River between Dorchester and Milton on Granite Avenue traverse a bridge that looks like, and is, a relic of the days when the Neponset River was a working river.

The nation's first railroad, built in 1826, ferried granite blocks from a Quincy quarry to a wharf on the banks on Gulliver's Brook, which is just upstream of the bridge, and from which the builders of the Bunker Hill Monument got their granite blocks.

Schooner being loaded with blocks from the Quincy railway (the big-wheeled thing is one of the "cars"- from the BPL's photo collection):

A bridge went up around 1837 near the wharf. In 1914, the state legislature authorized construction of a more modern bascule drawbridge.

Today, of course, the bridge has entered its golden years, only rising and lowering for the passage of boats from one of the two yacht clubs upstream (one right next to the bridge).

If the light is flashin', don't keep walkin':

Cables go down to the underside of the bridge:

Window-like cutouts at the top of the concrete weight provide a handy place for pigeons to rest - and to hide from the hawks and now bald eagles that patrol the Neponset: