People on the Boro 22

It has suddenly gone from winter to limbo to spring, and that brings folks outside.

Out in small boats, meetings for dock plans,

surveying this strange place called NYC,

keeping bow watch,

racing geese,

or stowing wires . . .

 

 

 

it’s all easier on spring days like this.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Riverbanks 10

Here are previous installments focusing on background.

Sometimes the partial reveal and the juxtaposition highlight what’s on the shorelines, like those triple deckers in Bayonne that would blend in perfectly in many 19th century mill towns.

Or the hugely forgotten Singer plant in Elizabeth, hugely forgotten by most residents of Elizabeth, that is.  Imagine, if someone could turn the clock back on that one, 10,000 people would have manufacturing jobs . . . either sewing machines, or

weaponry of all sorts.

 

But one detail on the bank over by the NJ-side of the Bridge caught my attention.  So I thought these beams would be trucked from the disappearing bridge to a scrapping yard.  How surprised I was when the crane lifted the beam off the truck not 1000 feet from where they’d been on duty for decades and

lowered them

one after the other

to what might be a series of trucks below.  I can’t quite see what becomes of the beams on the ground at Bergen Point.  And I think that’s the Passaic small boat.  ??

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Keep your eyes open and stay safe.

On Turning 86

The 1931 bridge has been so prominent on this blog over the past decade plus that the past few years of construction and now deconstruction mesmerize me.  Just look at the header photo I’ve not changed since 2006.  I’ll never change it now.

I spent a few hours watching the work yesterday and share some of the photos here today and tomorrow.  Photo 1 was taken at 06:49 before work began, from what I could tell;  I’m the observer only and speculate sometimes because I’m not privy to the communications.  NY is to the left and NJ to the right.

06:54 … NJ side.  A safety and planning meeting?

07:01.  Workers use various means to venture out to the severed transverse beam (?) to begin its removal.

07:30.  Similar activity starts on the NY side.

07:52

08:25.  Almost imperceptibly slow, the movement of the transverse progresses.

08:28.  And then it speeds up.

08:36.  A flatbed trailer has backed into place to receive the beam.

08:38.  Meanwhile, over on the NJ side, a similar evolution has begun.

08:39.

Meanwhile, at 08:43, a container vessel is rounding Bergen bend  and headed for sea, after “threading the needle,”  …  well, not really, it made it in with those beams in place . . .

08:43, and we’ll pick up the evolution here tomorrow with MSC Kolkata   . . .  Note the crewmen on the bow?

I’d like to give a hat tip to all the Bayonne Bridge workers who work with such skill and safety in this enormous project, one of at least six bridge projects happening simultaneously in the greater sixth boro.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Watch the Gap

As of six days ago, that gap was all that seemed to remain for a complete span.  Who knows . . . by now, that may be bridged as well.  Here are some of the posts that show the project of modifying the soon-to-be 85 year-old icon I’ve had on my blog since day 1.  Here were a set of posts I did when the bridge turned 80.

 

Once the higher span is complete and open for traffic, the lower span will be dismantled.  I wonder what the arches are feeling.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Wavertree at Caddell Dry Dock 6

Here were the previous posts, the last one being in April.  On June 11, I took the photo below, and since then had not been back until yesterday. Note how far along the Bayonne Bridge was on that date, as well

x

Here’s a closer up of the rigging on June 11.

Now let’s jump forward to yesterday, August 15.  Note where the crane barge

Claude G. Forbes started the morning, and

and check the progressing in rigging, compared with photo #2 above.

Yard tug Jay Bee V came out to

reposition the barge.  Note the mizzen on the background.

Then the crane pivoted around and

the block was lowered and

straps added and

all systems checked and

then slowly tensioned.  One end of the mast lifted from off the deck

BUT then it was lowered.  I waited around for an hour more, but then had other places to be.    I’ll have to pick up the Wavertree story another time.

Since I mentioned the Bayonne Bridge–its own process–here’s what the work looks like as of August 15 from over off the west end of Caddell Dry Dock .. . aka ex-Blissenbach Marina now known as Heritage Park, which in my opinion, should have foliage trimmed so as to be  more user friendly for land-based photographers.

Thanks to everyone who braved the heat last night and came to the showing of Graves of Arthur Kill.  Special thanks to those wizards who problem-solved our way through the technical challenges, except I had brought along an antepenultimate version . . .  and sorry I didn’t have a chance to talk with everyone there.  What you want–prepare for an explicit commercial message here– is this version, which Gary and I call “the director’s cut,” available for a mere $11.99.

While I’m doing “commercials,” here’s an opportunity for the right people to sail offshore on South Street Seaport Museum’s 1893 fishing schooner, up to Gloucester for the 2016 schooner races, or back, or some portion thereof. Click here for some of the many Lettie G. Howard posts I’ve done over the years.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.

 

Update: Turning 84

A few years ago, I did this series of posts on the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Bayonne Bridge, which I needed to shoot under to get this photo of Laura K. Moran assisting Global Laguna–-probably here for scrap– around Bergen Point.

So let’s have a look at the construction project, one of two major infrastructure upgrades in greater NYC.  The photo below shows the New Jersey side of the project,  mirror image mostly for what’s happening on the New York side.  For scale, consider that the yellow horizontal structure–a gantry–is 500′ long.

Note the six or so support piers, 6 of what will be 26.

Below is a closer-up of the second pier from the left in the above photo.

And here’s still closer.  See the worker?

Here’s the fifth pier from the left.

Here’s about 100′ feet of the gantry.   See the worker in the boom lift, just under the support pier?

Now you see him?

Still see him?

 

Stay tuned.  Here’s a nj.com story on the work from before this summer.

I can’t wait for the project to finish and take a walk over the new east-looking walkway.  Never again will I get photos like this and this looking westward from the bridge, though.

For photos of the other bridge project, follow Kaleidoscope Eyes.