Leonard B Smith Bridge - Willemstad, Curacao - Moving Bridges on Waymarking.com

This small double-leaf pedestrian drawbridge spans the mouth of the "Waaigat", a tiny inlet which opens into the St. Anna Bay separating downtown Willemstad into two local districts: Punda (the Point) and Otrobanda (the Other Side). The mouth of the Waaigat is home to small vessels used mostly for commercial purposes, namely a fleet of fruit and vegetables merchants selling their wares on the famous Floating Market right at the water's edge.

The pedestrian bridge is adorned with ornate counterweight levers, and features a unique architectural design: rather than the two leaves touching each other at the center of the bridge, each leaf spans the entire length of the drawbridge itself and covers half of the overall bridge's width, giving the appearance of two identical narrow single-leaf (and single-beam) drawbridges placed facing each other.

The bridge was named after the American entrepreneur and US Consul Leonard Burlington Smith who built the nearby Queen Emma swinging pontoon bridge in 1888. That particular bridge floats on 16 pontoons and is hinged so that it can be opened to enable unobstructed passage of large commercial vessels and cruise ships sailing between the open seas and the capital's inner harbor, see waymark WMGME2 - Queen Emma Bridge (Curacao)

Bridge Type: Drawbridge (Bascule Bridge) Built: 12/07/2007 Span: 8-10 meters... although the entire bridge itself is about 33 meters Pedestrian Traffic: yes Bicycle Traffic: yes Vehicular Traffic: no Railway Traffic: no

Visit Instructions:
Take a picture of the bridge and record the exact coordinates where the picture was taken.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   12/03/2023 dream chaser visited it 12/11/2018 denben visited it 05/12/2015 broder visited it 03/14/2015 katinka3 visited it 01/08/2015 merlot visited it 11/04/2014 InGodsHands visited it 12/28/2013 Raven visited it

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