New Tappan Zee Bridge

Every morning, I cross the Tappan Zee Bridge on my way to work.  At certain times of year, my crossing coincides with a beautiful sunrise I see through the latticework of the bridge’s superstructure.  At other times, I witness the colorful sunset over the western Palisades as I return home.  Recently, a veritable flotilla of barges has assembled at positions both north and south of the bridge, each laden with steel pilings and support beams for a new TZB.  The current bridge opened to traffic in 1955, and a 2009 report states that it was not constructed with a plan “conducive to long-term durability.”  As a result, it has been under a constant state of repair for the last 20 years – thus, the justification for a new bridge.  The most remarkable aspect of the assembly of barges is the flock of at least a dozen towering cranes floating alongside the spine of the bridge.  Each day, they position foundational pilings and move rust stained steel from barge to emerging bridge.  From a distance, the cranes are a delicate anachronism of an earlier era, of what I imagine construction looking like when Robert Moses reshaped New York.  The lattice of each crane's armature gives it an almost origami likeness to its feathered namesake, each crosspiece a metaphorical crease in its paper counterpart.  The only modern facet of the archaic technology I can see is an orange-checkered flag and an anemometer that screams in the bitter wind that rages on blustery winter days.    Today, construction workers were bundled in insulation, and helmeted, and tethered to the edifice as wind swept waves slapped the sides of each barge and sent an icy spray across the deck.  On a day-to-day basis, progress is imperceptible.  The project worms its way across the river at a snail’s pace, closing the gap between Rockland and Westchester.   Yet, the developing project is truly a marvel, and by the end of the year, it will become even more so with the arrival of “The Left Coast Lifter,” one of the world’s largest cranes capable of lifting more than 12 times the weight of the Statue of Liberty.  I never tire viewing this evolving spectacle - my semi-diurnal crossing is the highlight of an otherwise tedious commute, something I can look forward to for the next three years.