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.