5
DEC. 16, 2018, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
Squibb’s second act
Multi-million-dollar bridge to Bridge Park
will be replaced after fi ve years in use
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BY JULIANNE CUBA
Brooklyn Bridge Park bigwigs
are shelling out millions
of dollars to build an
entirely new span in place
of the beleaguered Squibb
Bridge, which zig zags from
its namesake park in Brooklyn
Heights down to the waterfront
lawn below, and
for the second time closed
due to structural problems
back in July.
“We have announced
plans to fully replace
Squibb Bridge,” Eric Landau,
president of the semiprivate
Brooklyn Bridge
Park Corporation, which
oversees the green space,
said at a Dec. 5 corporation
board meeting. “There
is certainly a long history
with this bridge.”
Weeks after its recent
closure , Landau in September
told locals that the original
span funded by some $4
million in taxpayer dollars
— which opened in 2013 ,
closed the next year for a
roughly $3-million repair,
and reopened in April 2017
before shuttering again
this year — would be off
limits indefi nitely, because
what park leaders thought
was just a single faulty
piece of wood turned out to
be one of several planks decaying
due to “higher than
expected moisture levels,”
even though one of the
bridge’s main materials,
black locust, is supposed to
withstand heavy moisture.
Engineering fi rm Arup
Group, the company that
completed the bridge’s fi rst
repair after it closed in
2014, surveyed the span after
it shuttered this year.
That study ultimately resulted
in two options for
Brooklyn Bridge Park keepers:
repair the crossing for
a second time, or build a
new overpass from scratch,
Landau said. And meadow
stewards chose the latter,
but decided to use steel and
aluminum for the Squibb’s
second coming, instead of
its original wood.
“Based on a variety of
factors that is the decision
we made,” he said.
The new span will be
built by Manhattan–based
company Turner Construction,
take roughly 18
months to complete from
the start of the design process
through construction,
and cost the park $6.5 million
— $2.5 million more
than repairing the current
bridge would have cost, according
to Landau, whose
rep said the cash to construct
the new crossing will
come from funds generated
by development projects
and concession sales in the
green space.
But the extra dough is
worth the investment to
create a safer and more reliable
bridge that will hold
up for decades and require
little ongoing maintenance,
said Landau, who spoke to
this newspaper after giving
website Curbed the exclusive
on the new span.
“We believe that buys
us certainty, fi rst and foremost,”
he said. “Additionally,
the fact that the wood
will continue to deteriorate
will end up costing us signifi
cantly more money in
the long run.”
Many taxpayers, however,
won’t soon forget
watching the millions they
coughed up for the original
bridge — whose creator
Brooklyn Bridge Park leaders
fi red and sued in 2016
amid the span’s fi rst fi x
— essentially go down the
drain now that most of the
Squibb will be replaced,
according to a Brooklyn
Heights resident who formerly
represented the
neighborhood in Albany
for 30 years.
“We spent a lot of money
on that bridge and it’s been
a major disappointment,”
said attorney and former
state Sen. Martin Connor,
who sits on the Brooklyn
Bridge Park Corporation’s
17-member board of directors.
Landau said he expects
the second iteration
of the Squibb Bridge to be
ready by 2020 — the same
year a local pol hopes the
pool meadow stewards are
building in Squibb Park
will open as well.
But the park head —
Continued on page 8
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