Brooklyn Bridge Park’s rebuilt Squibb Bridge will reopen on May 4
Photos © Jamie Warren, Brooklyn Bridge Park
After closing for good nearly two years ago, a new Squibb Bridge will open at Brooklyn Bridge Park on May 4 at 9am, as was first reported by Curbed. The 450-foot-long walkway over Furman Street connects the Squibb Park (which will also reopen) on the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade to Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and has had quite a shaky history since first opening in 2013. Eric Landau, the president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, told Curbed, “The new bridge has the same overall aesthetic feeling of the previous bridge that people loved, with full functionality.”
The original wooden, zigzagging bridge was designed by Ted Zoli of the firm HNTB with a signature bounciness. It cost $4 million. Fifteen months after opening it was shut down to address structural problems for what was supposed to be a temporary time at an estimated cost of $700,000. However, the bridge ended up being closed through April 2017, at a cost of $3.4 million. This time, the deterioration of the wood led to a second closure 15 months later. After filing a $3 million lawsuit against HNTB (which was ultimately settled), the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation said they would rebuild the bridge.
One year ago, the Corporation revealed renderings of the new bridge, constructed of metal and without the bounce, from engineering firm Arup. The old bridge was demolished this past October, but its support pillars were left and used in the new bridge. As Curbed tells us, Arup “prefabricated the rest of the new structure offsite,” which includes metal trusses and a wooden walkway. The new bridge has an estimated cost of $6.5 million, though it’s not clear if the final cost was higher or lower than that initial projection. It is, however, opening several weeks ahead of schedule.
Eric Landau feels the early timing is more important amidst the current coronavirus crisis. “We are very pleased that the bridge is done, and we also think right now, as social distancing is important, that it’s important to give people different ways of getting in and out of the park,” he said to Curbed.
[Via Curbed]
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