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WOODN’T YOU KNOW: A 40-year veteran of the wood business claims that the Squibb Bridge’s blacklocust
wood is not to blame for the span’s recent structural problems, which he claimed were the fault
of other engineering issues. File photo by Jordan Rathkopf
Plank goodness!
Wood expert debunks Squibb Bridge decay
BY JULIANNE CUBA
Wood you look at that?
The sustainable and
long-lasting black-locust
wood used to construct
the soon-to-be-demolished
Squibb Bridge to Brooklyn
Bridge Park is not to
blame for the span’s structural
failures, despite
meadow stewards’ claims,
according to a wood expert
who supplies the timber
for projects across the
country.
“It’s really not the
wood’s fault at all,” said
Zach Rike, the founder
of North Carolina–based
supplier Robi Decking,
and a self-described
40-year veteran of the
business. “It is easy for
everyone to blame an inanimate
object, but nothing
could be further from
the truth. The wood is not
to blame.”
Bigwigs at the semiprivate
Brooklyn Bridge
Park Corporation in July
closed the Squibb Bridge ,
which zig-zags between
its namesake Squibb Park
and the waterfront lawn,
for the second time since
it opened in 2013, claiming
a single faulty piece of
black locust endangered
locals walking across the
span. Months later, greenspace
keepers in September
announced the bridge
would be shuttered indefi -
nitely because a “higher
than expected moisture
level” caused more than
just one of its planks to
decay.
“Sadly, that one piece
that showed visual signs
of problems is not the only
piece where we have deterioration,”
said Brooklyn
Bridge Park Corporation
President Eric Landau,
president of the semiprivate
Brooklyn Bridge
Park Corporation.
And last December,
meadow stewards revealed
they would spend
millions to replace the
bridge originally funded
by taxpayer dollars, and
construct a new steeland
aluminum span in its
place.
But Rike — who supplied
the black locust
used to build the roof
deck at the Brooklyn Children’s
Museum, and other
still-standing projects
across the city and country
— challenged Landau’s
claim that the timber,
which is known for
its ability to withstand
the harshest of elements,
simply rotted.
The expert argued that
any deterioration found
in the wood was instead
the fault of the bridge’s
designers, who he said
didn’t account for how the
timber reacts to changes
in climate, and too tightly
fastened the metal connectors
at the end of each
plank, resulting in the deterioration.
“The issue with the
bridge was the design,
and specifi cally the connectors
used. These connectors
did not allow for
the wood to expand and
contract with moisture
changes, and when the
wood had nowhere to expand,
it caused tension,
and the wood fi bers to
press against each other,”
Rike said. “The wood did
not rot. It’s woodworking
101.”
Rike compared the
need for space between
wood and connector to the
need for space between a
fi nger and a ring. When
it’s cold out, a fi nger may
contract, but when it’s
hot, that fi nger will likely
expand — and without
space to accommodate
that growth, a ring on that
fi nger could quickly cause
problems, he said.
“Now imagine that
the fi nger is a big piece of
wood, and the ring an airtight
metal clamp. Imagine
what happens when
that wood-fi nger gets humid
and expands, with
no soft skin and blood to
brace the impact,” he said.
“This is what happened
Continued on page 14
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