Bridges 2

It has been over six years since I first used this title, yet a bridge appears as header for every post.  And just in case you’re wondering, I will keep that version of the header no matter what gets announced the day after tomorrow.    The VZ Bridge is our Arc de Triomphe.  An April morning in 2008 I caught this foto of the QM2 arriving here for the first time.  Foto taken from the northwest (NW) side of the Narrows.

Each year representatives of the fleet pass –here USS Nitze–under, with added moisture added by FDNY.   Foto from the SE.

Dozens of vessels pass beneath the structure daily.  I recall how thrilled I was to drive my boat underneath  . . . in 2003, as I was moving it to the Great Lakes and myself into the sixth boro.  Aside from its symbolic and logistical value, the VZ is beautiful–here seen from the NE.

It’s most beautiful at dawn.

But the other morning as I caught this, I wonder why the bridgegreen version of navygray was chosen as its color.  I think of the Golden Gate, the Purple People Bridge, the yellow bridges of Pittsburgh.

What prompts this post is a sight I saw from the SE a few weeks ago . . . what looked first like a high-hanging fruit hanging west of the Brooklynside tower.  I wondered if it’d always been there but somehow I’d missed it.

Zooming in, though, I saw it was a paint crew, at least five painters.  Putting on camouflage or daubing antirust?

Maybe preparing to change the color depending on the results of a horse race?

Or prepping for a new VZ Bridge color in honor of the bridge’s jubilee . .  in about a year and a half?

Happy May Day .  . all fotos by Will Van Dorp.   Anyone know why the official spelling of the bridge does not match that of its namesake?