The Main Street Bridge at 83 years old. See throwback photos here.

Downtown's Main Street Bridge is the second oldest bridge in Jacksonville after the Acosta (original name: the St. Johns River Bridge). The Acosta, though, has been torn down and rebuilt, while the Main Street Bridge still looks as pretty as did when it opened in 1941.

It's a lift bridge that's busy with traffic (13,800 cars a day by 2022 figures) though its pedestrian lanes give walkers and runners a fine view of the narrow spot in the St. Johns River. And when the Super Bowl came to Jacksonville, it was closed to traffic and became a bustling gathering spot for partying fans.

Its official name is the John T. Alsop Jr. Bridge, which was given nearly 16 years after it opened. Alsop, who came to Florida as one of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, served 14 consecutive years as Jacksonville mayor before leaving office in 1937 (he returned four years later). He died at 83, about a month after the bridge was renamed for him in 1957.

This year the bridge has been the site for a couple of peaceful displays of lights after the Florida Department of Transportation declared all state bridges must be lit only in red, white, and blue all summer long for Gov. Ron DeSantis’s "Freedom Summer."

On May 31, members and supporters of Jacksonville's LBGTQ community used multicolored flashlights to create a rainbow effect on the bridge to mark Pride Month in June. And on June 19, on Juneteenth, the federal holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville lit the bridge up in red, black and green for 19 minutes beginning at 9:19 p.m.

See throwback photos of Jacksonville's Main Street Bridge, which opened in 1941