Granite towers rise ahead as you cross the span linking Boston and Cambridge over the Charles River basin. The Longfellow Bridge was built in 1906, its four granite towers capped with shapes that have always been called the salt and pepper shakers by Bostonians who cross it. It was officially named for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who lived in Cambridge and whose poem The Bridge, written in 1845 about the earlier bridge that stood on this site, contains lines about standing on the bridge and watching the moonlight on the water.
The view from the center of the bridge takes in the Charles River basin, the Beacon Hill shoreline to the south, the Cambridge shore and MIT to the north, and the downtown Boston skyline to the east — the same view that Longfellow described, minus the skyscrapers. The bridge carries both the Red Line of the MBTA subway and pedestrian and bicycle traffic; it was rebuilt and restored between 2012 and 2018. Stand in the center and look east toward the harbor on a clear morning; the skyline reflection in the river basin is one of the finest urban views in New England.