Callahan Bridge
The Callahan Bridge is a four lane (two lanes in each direction) suspension bridge, connecting southwestern Portland Island with east-central Staunton Island in Liberty City.
History
Callahan Bridge is the only bridge connecting Staunton and Portland, hence being an essential transport link between the two islands. Like the Shoreside Lift Bridge, the bridge effectively serves as a barrier to prevent the player from venturing into other islands prematurely (referred as the "[broken bridge]" method of unlocking new areas of the city), and will only be usable once the player completes a sufficient number of missions. While not accurately based on any prominent bridges in New York City, the Callahan Bridge does bear some resemblance to the Wards Island-Queen span of the Triborough/Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in terms of structural design but not in the strictest sense, featuring only one vertical suspender instead of two.
In Grand Theft Auto III, the bridge was severely damaged in late 2001 by a bomb during an attack in the beginning of the game by the Colombian Cartel on a police convoy that was crossing the bridge at the time. The Cartel attacked the convoy in order to kidnap one of the prisoners it was transporting, and unwittingly set Claude and 8-Ball free as well. As the Portland string of missions are performed, the bridge remains largely uncrossable until the completion of "Last Requests", when the bridge is finally repaired and is operational once again.
As the Porter Tunnel is not completed in Grand Theft Auto Advance, the Callahan Bridge serve as the only link between Portland and Staunton. The bridge design receives a degree of simplification to accommodate the game system's limited hardware capabilities.
In Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, the bridge was enduring construction circa 1998 and the was not finished yet, so modes of transportation between Portland Island and Staunton Island was limited to ferries before the bridge is partially completed to the point the player can jump over the remaining gaps using a ramp.
Exploits
Despite being temporarily unusable in GTA III, the player can in fact cross the damaged bridge on foot even before completing the first mission by carefully jumping from one dangling bar to another, allowing them access to both Staunton and Shoreside Vale. While the Shoreside Life Bridge remains non-functional, the Staunton-Shoreside Vale link of the Porter Tunnel is not sealed off; the Portland end remains fenced up.
It is more difficult, if not impossible, to cross the bridge from Staunton to Portland using the same method, and as such, requires the player resort to others means, such as committing suicide (thereby transporting them back to the Sweeney General Hospital in Portland), being arrested (transporting them to Portland LCPD station), or returning to Portland using a boat or a Dodo.
See also
- The Dukes-Charge Island span of the East Borough Bridge, another bridge in GTA IV featuring seemingly similar bridge designs as the Callahan Bridge.