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.

 

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.

Bridges 3

This gateway to the sixth boro dazzles at dawn, with out traffic or with.

Know this ship?  You saw this funnel before in a foggy October post as well as in a sunny September post in the past twelve months.

Here are the specs for the 12-year-old vessel going under the almost 50-year-old bridge.

In the distance, that’s the Newark Bay Bridge, located  north of Ports Elizabeth and Newark.

Inbound . . .

outbound, and

closely monitored.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who finally watched Saturday Night Fever for the first time, because of the bridges scenes.  It turned out to be a much better movie than this non-discoing blogger ever imagined.  See it if you haven’t, for a throwback to Bay Ridge (mostly)  back in 1977 . . . which started with a president named Ford , new computers were Commodore PETs and Apple IIs, and the Concorde started to fly to NYC.

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?