MAX
COURIER LIFE, D M B G EC. 14–20, 2018 31
OFF LIMITS: The Squibb Park entrance to the bridge, seen
here back when park offi cials cordoned the span off to locals
for the second time back in July.
File photo by Colin Mixson
SQUIBB BRIDGE
Continued from page 26
vestment 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 — who before the bridge shuttered
in July said he could not promise that construction
of the pool wouldn’t require him to close
the span he is now replacing — wouldn’t comment
on the possibility of the two projects butting heads.
And he offered no more clarity on when the
swimming hole will be ready for locals to dive in,
stating his staff must fi rst raise all the necessary
funds and choose an architect before he can provide
a timeline.
“I’m not going to give you a year,” he said. “What
we have said is that we hope to have the pool as soon
as we can. Once we have an architect on board, and
the fund-raising continues, we will have a better
sense of a schedule for the pool.”
Landau also is confi dent that the looming reconstruction
of the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway’s triple
cantilever — which stretches 1.5 miles between
Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, and cuts beneath
the stretch of Columbia Heights where locals currently
enter Middagh Street’s Squibb Park — won’t
affect work on the new bridge or pool.
But the park leader conceded that using either
during the expressway repair may not be a pleasant
experience.
“It is possible that while the BQE is under construction
there will be impact of the enjoyment of
the space as it relates to noise and dust, but there
are things we can do operationally to mitigate that
as well once the pool is open,” he said.