1896–1918Pontoon Bridge
The Grand Hotel Mayer and Petrovaradin Fortress with its pontoon bridge
A two-panel card set inside a floral Jugendstil border pairs the domed Grand Hotel Mayer with a view of Petrovaradin fortress across the Danube, reached by a wooden pontoon bridge that a horse and carriage are crossing. A sender has filled the lower third of the card with a handwritten Hungarian verse and a signature. The captions read Mayer szálló Ujvidéken and Pétervárad hajóhíddal, Festung Peterwardein mit der Schiffbrücke.
About this place
Before any permanent bridge stood here, Novi Sad and Petrovaradin were joined by a wooden pontoon bridge laid across the Danube on oak floats. Crossings of this kind were used from the late seventeenth century, and the first standing bridge dates from 1788; it was known as Hagen's bridge after the officer, Baron von Hagen, who designed it on the model of one at Mannheim. It was laid each spring by the pontonier unit stationed at Petrovaradin and taken up again before the first ice, and its middle section could be drawn aside to let river traffic through. Carts paid a toll while anything carried by hand went free, residents of the two towns crossed without charge, and the season opened every year with a handshake between the mayor of Novi Sad and the commandant of the fortress. The bridge was removed for the last time in 1918, when work began on the permanent crossing that became the Prince Tomislav bridge.
On the card
Mayer Szálló Újvidéken; Pétervárad hajóhíddal
- Date
- 1896–1918
- Coordinates
- 45.25463, 19.85729
- Source
- National Széchényi Library - postcards
- Credit
- National Széchényi Library
- Licence
- Public domain
- Size
- 2312 × 1535 px
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