Posted on 01/21/2014 1:34:24 PM PST by Impala64ssa
David Capobianco was a toddler in 1964 when the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge slowly soared over his neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and tethered it to Staten Island. As he grew up, the improbable notion of assembling something so big and of such gossamer design propelled him to become a civil engineer.
Now after years of public argument and indecision, the first new colossal steel bridge in the New York area since the Verrazano is finally beginning to rise over one of the most spacious stretches of the Hudson River, a replacement for the decaying Tappan Zee, the longest bridge in the state, and Mr. Capobianco, 51, is its project manager.
All other projects Ive worked on are dwarfed by this the size of the equipment involved, the enormity of what were doing, the number of people involved, he said.
From a small boat on the gunmetal waters of the Hudson, weaving among an archipelago of stout barges and giraffe-like cranes, the scale of the work in progress is impressive. The eight-lane bridge actually two parallel spans that will stretch across a 3.1-mile breadth of the river between Tarrytown in Westchester County and South Nyack in Rockland County will by some measures be the widest in the world.
By Christmas, dock builders on floating barges had used hydraulically driven vibrating hammers to pound 28 piles steel tubes up to six feet in diameter and up to 300 feet long into the bottom of the Hudson River, some drilled into bedrock, others held by the sheer density of the riverbed muck.
A thousand piles will eventually be needed, so workers are hustling at a pace of eight piles every two weeks, although they have been slowed by the recent bitter cold.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Not amused.
Say not so. I think cable-stayed bridges are beautiful.
“Its only the longest bridge in NY because a corrupt congressman wanted it in his district instead of where it would have been most effective.”
unfamiliar with the issue; where is it that it would have been most effective???
The appeal of I-84 is three-fold: (1) lower tolls, (2) less congestion east of the Hudson up through New England, and (3) better connections to the interior of North America outside of congested urban centers.
If I had to go the length of that bridge/tunnel as a passenger I would detest it.
I could NEVER drive it.
Good for your Dad though—must be a very smart man.
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Ridiculous statement.
I'm stuned you'd even deign to post it.
I grew up in NY. As a kid, we used to take the Hudson River ferry that ran from Yonkers over to Weehawken, NJ. Once the Tappan Zee was built, the ferry ceased operation.
The staggering part of all of this is that the current Tappan Zee was built quickly. Now, in this age of advanced engineering, the replacement bridge will take well over 4 years to build? Just another example of what has happened to this country. Seems like we can’t build any major public project without taking a year and a day.
As for the NY Times comments that the Korean War caused a steel shortage, as I recall, that war ended in 1953. That was 2 to 3 years before steel was needed to build the Tappan Zee. Is the NY Times serious???
Who was the Congressman? Is that why they decided to build the bridge at the widest place on the Hudson River? I never could figure out why they chose to spend the money to build such a long bridge which could easily have been built a few miles up or down stream.
“gunmetal waters of the Hudson”?
In high school, I rowed in 8 man shell races at Poughkeepsie, a good bit farther up the Hudson. Even at Poughkeepsie the river water was brown, not gunmetal gray. Maybe the river has been cleaned up since the late 1950s but I suspect not. Worst place I ever had to row, especially when the race was run from downstream to upstream.
Okay, hopefully this is a good forum to post this: I’ve been planning a trip from the headwaters of the Hudson River all the way down to NYC. I’d like FReeper input on what to do, see, experience...any help would be greatly appreciated. What to visit, what to avoid, how much time to devote, etc.
Again, no one knows better than FReepers-thanks in advance!
Oh, yeah-I would be going during Fall foliage season.
And it will cost 15 dollars to cross it, rat bastards!
Them’s fightin’ words...
Beebers at ten paces.
The thing had to be replaced sometime. The current bridge is practically falling apart.
They're planning to build a parallel Thimble Shoal Tunnel on that thing starting in 2016.
In 1941, the USA had 4 aircraft carriers. In 1943, we had 151 (yes, one hundred fifty-one).
It now takes 9-12 years to build one aircraft carrier, and we can only build one at a time.
That's progress for you.
He looks just like the Actor that Pacino dispatched along with the crooked Police Lieutenant in The Godfather.
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