Don’t Swing that Thing

A few weeks ago, I noticed the orange structures, comfort stations for the workers at the VZ Bridge.  Given the ladders from the underside of the roadbed to the orange privy, I wondered how long it would take for a bathroom break.

 

Some days later, I was social distancing inmy car and noticed Gabby approach.

Movement caught my attention;  the crane swiveled around and the orange privy swung out . . .

It happened again and

again.

Since it was a windy day, an overfilled privy might be . . .

unpleasant.

Yet all transpired without incident or irrigation on old Fort Lafayette.  It was a professional job.

Photos, WVD.

 

1000+ Days Ago

Note:  If you haven’t read “my” long comment to yesterday’s ‘SterCrazy 3 post, I added much more info from Robin Denny about the Bug roadster there.

March 23, 2017.    So how many folks are standing at a high point of the Evergreen ship?

Two?  Six?  More?

 

It was something of an optical illusion, because the lower roadbed was in its last days.

On April 2, 2017 . . . Maersk Kolkata was one of the first vessels to “thread the needle” and shoot through the

opening, where a roadbed had been for almost a century.   Time flies.

A week and a few days later, April 11, 2017

the “opening” in the lower roadway had grown to the point that it was difficult to imagine it’d ever been there.

Photos by Will Van Dorp, who did another post in April 2017 showing other vessels “shooting the needle” here.

 

 

Janet D and Patricia

Some “infra structuring” for cars, trucks, buses requires barges and boats.

In past months I’ve done a number of posts where bridgework is, if not the foreground, then certainly the background.  The other day I was fortunate to catch Janet D moving barge Patricia sound to perform some of the work.

Janet D shuttled her barge and crew between the towers during breaks in ship traffic.

 

After all, how can you get materials and tools onto the island once occupied by Fort Lafayette with boats . . .

Scale is evident

once the bridge crew start the climb to work station . . . .

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Nautic Narrows News 1

Spring and fog coexist a lot, and from there, the gradation from fog to summer haze is somewhat blurred.  Blue-hulled Oyster Catcher, in the foreground, gives clearest indication that this in not a black/white/gray photo.  I’ve searched online fruitlessly to confirm that Oyster Catcher is an NYC DEP vessel.  When

A panoply of vessels converge in the Narrows as the great gray ULCV approaches from many days at sea.

 

I’ve not been paying attention to how many of these ULCVs have multiple bow thrusters.  Anyone know the horsepower on each?

 

 

 

Three 6000s, one 3900, and two brants . . . all converging along with Cosco Faith.

For scale, notice the 25′-to 30′ outboard passing just to the right of the letter O in COSCO.  More to scale, note the size of engineering crew next to this crankshaft.

I waited for a messenger line for the deckhand to send up the towline, but  . . . it happened after they were out of range for me.

All photos here by your faithful observer, Will Van Dorp.

Bayonne Bridge Transformation 3

Here was 1 and here, 2.  As others of you, I’ve been waiting for the walkway to open;  it’s been closed since August 2013!!

Today’s photos are all from the past six weeks, and my way of saying that workers are still active on this bridge

 

See the same guys above and below?

My son works in a fairly high “man basket,” but I doubt he’s ever

been in one this high.  These must extend to nearly 200′?

The next two photos I took earlier this week.

 

Since the Bayonne Bridge has appeared on every blog post (as header photo) I’ve done, I do know it better than any other bridge locally. Happy holidays from Will Van Dorp.

Hail to the New 2

Whether you’re working or not, January 1 is a transition, a bridge between years.  And that brings me to the handsome bridges below.  The nearest is a rail bridge.  Can you identify the location?

Here you can see parts of all four bridges.  Answer follows, but I’m thinking to float and paddle through here in 2019.

I went out briefly this morning to see who was moving.  Crystal Cutler was the first I saw . . .  at least I saw the lights of.

Bluefin, first in the notch and then light a bit later, was the first tugboat I could photograph.

The bridges photo was taken in Harrisburg two days ago.  The broad river is the Susquehanna.  Anyone interested in joining me in a 80+ mile trip down to Havre de Grace in spring?  Has anyone done it?

The nearest bridge is the Philadelphia & Reading RR Bridge.  Visible beyond it–looking upstream– are Market Street Bridge, Walnut Street Bridge, and the M Harvey Taylor Street Bridge with the blue girders.  I’d thought that was the Route 81 bridge, but it is not.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you transition well into 2019.

People on the Boro 24

Here are previous installments in this series.

You might look at this top photo and ask yourself where are the people, and is this really about the sixth boro?

They’re there, and to me bridges like this are hybrid creatures, attached to land but in air over water.

I’d been here for at least half an hour before I noticed the bridge workers.

Then I noticed how crowded the wires were,

all strapped in and employing some ingenious conveyances.

 

I don’t think this is a windy or cold weather job, but I don’t know.

 

I believe I’d have a hard time working here, since I’d be looking around too much.  Has anyone been to the observation deck on the bridge in Bucksport ME?

If so, I’d love to hear about it.  Meanwhile, here’s what Gay Talese had to say about the VZ Bridge back in 1964:  ““The anonymous hard-hatted men who put the bridge together, who took risks and sometimes fell to their deaths in the sky, over the sea—they did it in such a way that it would last.”

Meanwhile I use the bridge both for passage to the other side and for framing photos like this of Meishan Bridge departing or

or Elsbeth III arriving.

All photos in October by Will Van Dorp, who tips his toque for the work these folks do.

Retro Sixth Boro 8

One satisfying thing to me about these retro posts is noticing how much the local fleet has changed.  All these photos I took in November 2008.  Coral Queen was scrapped at least eight or nine years ago.  Maersk Donegal has had two name changes since 2008, now know as Santa Priscila, and no longer calls in the sixth boro.

SPT Guardian, still under the same name, is currently operating out of Lome, Togo.  Note the NJ State Police boat alongside.  I don’t know if they are still using that boat.

ITB Groton is gone as well.

The huge K-Sea fleet in the boro has dispersed.  Solomon Sea is now Emily Ann,

Falcon, I believe, is still Falcon but wears Vane livery,

Davis Sea still has the same name but Kirby colors and operates in the Gulf,

and Aegean Sea carries the same name but works for Burnham Associates in my old stomping grounds north of Boston.  NYK Diana has moved to the Pacific to the US West Coast.

This Rosemary McAllister has been replaced by another Rosemary McAllister, and has spent only part of one day in the sixth boro.

Stapleton Service takes the prize for the greatest number of name changes, three since 2008.  She’s now Michael Miller.

Buchanan 15 has become Dory, although I’ve not seen her in a while.

Coral Queen‘s smaller fleet mate was John B. Caddell, which became a hurricane Sandy victim:  grounded, sheriff auctioned, and scrapped.

I made a jaunt upriver aboard the only and only Half Moon–now sold abroad– in November 2008, and saw

Champion Polar but she’s now

–ice bow and all- dead and likely scrapped,  as well as

a more intact Bannerman’s Castle.

All photos by Will Van Dorp in November 2008.

 

 

Bayonne Bridge Transformation 2

There’s an expression about the excitement of watching paint dry.  Recording a large construction project is about as interesting unless you do a form of time lapse, which I’ve inadvertently done with the Bayonne Bridge. Change is happening all over the city, but here’s what I’ve watched since way before the raising began.

In August 2017, I rode over the new span for the first time.

 

I next got down to look what was happening at the Bridge in December,  the 16th.

Here’s January.  Notice above the old lower roadbed still spanned to the third arches inside Bayonne, and below, three arches (I’ll call them 4–6) remained without roadbed.

That’s Doris Moran, and notice that #6 arch has seen some erosive work.

In mid-February, #6 arch is gone, and work is happening

(here’s a closeup) on #5.

By 24 April, #4 is gone and #3 previously supporting a roadbed is now “freestanding”, as Joyce passes.

And on May 10, roadbed only linked the grid box with one of the arches, and the current inland most arch is only half its former size.

Here’s a closer up.

On June 20, this is what remained of arch #1.

Here’s a closeup.  I’m wondering if the workers in the lift basket held a camera so that the extension jack hammer could see what he was doing.

Then I noticed . . . about where arch #4 had been a new column was being erected in sections.

The tall crane does the lifting, and workers in two lift baskets–an orange and a green–guided the section into place, fitting the guide rods–it seems–into slots in the section being lowered.

All photos and interpretation by Will Van Dorp, who alone is responsible for any mis-reading of the process.

 

Bayonne Bridge Transformation 1

More of the Great Race soon . . . but a bit of back story.

When I moved to our fair metropolis in 2000 and started paying attention, I was taken by the Bayonne Bridge, so enamored in fact that I choose it as the header image for this blog in 2006, and now out of stubbornness– or something– have kept the old view.

I renewed my focus on the Bridge in 2011, “turning” became the key word in the titles.  Click here to see posts I did for its 80th, 84th, and 86th anniversary of initial construction, and here I marked the 80 mark again twice.   Over 10 years ago I alluded to the raising for the first time here.

Here’s a single post that looks at the change from 2011 until 2017.

For a baseline, let’s use sunrise April 24, 2008, looking from the west, those two boats are Justine McAllister and Huron Service, now Genesis Victory.

And from the east, December 2011, and that boat was Barents Sea, currently known as Atlantic Enterprise.   As to the bridge, note the box-grid work (not a technical term) on the Bayonne side of the arch.

From Richmond Terrace (Staten Island) perspective, here’s the bridge in February 2012.

By September 13, the box grid was covered, possibly to allow sand blasting.

By January 2014, the cover was off the box grid.  Yes, that’s Specialist.

By October 2015, the box grid was being extended upward, as

the vertical supports were being erected farther into Bayonne.

Here’s a December 15 view, showing the symmetry of the construction.

Here’s March 2016, and you can begin to see the location of the raised roadbed.

Here’s a view from May 2016 from the west side of the Bayonne shore.

By August 2016, the new span has been completely defined.

Here’s a closer up, showing the old level–still poet traffic–and the new level, along with the device used to place pre-cast portions of the new road bed.   The tug is Taft Beach.

Here, as seen from the west side, is most of the bridge in September 2016.  Note the gap still remaining on the Staten Island side.

By March 23,  2017, the upper deck was open to wheeled traffic, and the lower deck was ready to be dismantled.

Here’s a closer-up of that opening.

By April 2, a gap existed, and

by April 11, 2017, ships that might have scrapped  year before were shooting through the opening that grew wider by the week.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who will continue this progression soon.