The New Jersey Department of Transportation has a really nice bridge for sale. Cheap. Hardly used.

The Rutgers Avenue Bridge, built in 1921 and spanning the Passaic River between Belleville and North Arlington, is available to whoever wants it. The price is...free. That's right, if you can remove the 115-foot long bridge with 35-foot towers, you can have it. And you can even get Federal funds to help re-assemble it.

Sound farfetched? Not really. London Bridge didn't fall down, it was sold in 1971 for $2.46 million to a developer who transported it from England and re-assembled it in Lake Havasu, Arizona as a tourist attraction.

The first bridge at the site was a 1790 wooden span owned by Anthony Rutgers, which later had the NJ State University named after him. In 1846, a flood destroyed the bridge and a new wooden bridge was erected. That was replaced by an iron drawbridge in 1878, which was replaced in 1921 by the current bridge. The NJDOT wants to replace the bridge with a $30 million drawbridge in August 1998.

Any takers? Contact the NJDOT...

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