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SubTitle: The Bridge
Posted by: Bob Sheridan (bobsheridan@earthlink.net) on 11/14/1997@00:24hrs:
Old SI had the Outerbridge,the Goethals, and the Bayonne bridges, but the one that seems to have done the most to change the character of the Island is the V-N. I regard it as a most beautiful bridge, and I watched it built, from the taking of soundings from barges so they could build the towers, to building the anchorages (the huge concrete structures that the cables attach to), to the cables from which hang the suspenders, to the roadway hanging from the suspenders. My dad ran the batch plant on the SI side and I used to go up to the control room or cockpit and watch him. Down below were piles of sand, gravel, and cement, under which was a tunnel with a conveyer belt. Under each pile was a trap door which Dad controlled electronically. He'd drop various amounts and proportions of the ingredients from the bottom of the piles onto the conveyor belt, which would lift the stuff up into the mixing tank where the water and ice would be added, the ice to keep the chemical reaction of cement and water from getting too hot. The mixture would be dropped into a bucked on the end of a line controlled by a crane which would lift the mixture of wet (now) concrete mix to the location on the anchorage where the groundmen had fastened steel-rebar. They'd open the bucket and the mix would drop out where they'd spread it over the rebar into a confined area the edges of which were indented so the next pour would lock into this pour as in a tongue and groove joint that couldn't come loose. Sometimes the guy running the batch plant didn't want to come down to relieve himself during a run, so he'd do what any boy would, take a leak right into the mix. So I know that part of my old man is part of that bridge, literally. When it opened in '64, it was a big deal, with a lot of vying to be first across. There must be a few of you who have memories of the bridge going up, and the diffence it made to the Island. Whaddaya think?