Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Editor

Part of a flock of 15 Great Egrets and one Great Blue Heron flying over Tribeca.  

(Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

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The Bayonne Bridge, which spans the Kill Van Kull between Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey, was an engineering marvel when it was completed in 1931 and it is an engineering marvel today. Once the world's largest steel arch bridge, it is still the fifth largest. But its roadway, 151 feet above the water, was too low to accommodate the giant ships now transiting the enlarged Panama Canal. Port Newark-Elizabeth, which handles most of the New York-area commercial shipping, is on the far side of the bridge. Approximately $200 billion worth of goods pass through this port every year. Something needed to be done to ensure that New York would remain a viable commercial shipping hub. And since around 3.5 million vehicles cross the Bayonne Bridge annually, whatever was done had to take this essential connection into account.  

 

The possibilities and costs were vigorously debated: tunnel under the Kill Van Kill? Build another bridge next to the Bayonne Bridge and tear the old bridge down? Or raise the roadway? The last option was the one adopted. The roadway would be raised by 64 feet and this would be done without closing the bridge to traffic completely or blocking the Kill Van Kull so that cargo ships would be unable to pass.  

 

The design process began in 2011. Construction started in 2013. On Sept. 7, 2017, the first Panamax ship - the T. Roosevelt - passed under the Bayonne Bridge's new, elevated roadway and entered the Port of Newark-Elizabeth. But work on the bridge was not over. The roadway, accommodating four lanes of traffic and a pedestrian/bicycle path, still had to be finished.  

 

On June 14, 2019, the Bayonne Bridge was rededicated at a ceremony attended by Port Authority and elected officials. The people who had designed and rebuilt the bridge were lauded for their work, which has been honored for its engineering excellence. The American Council of Engineering Companies called the bridge the best overall engineering achievement of 2017.  

 

The bridge has been rebuilt with materials and a design that should be good for another 100 years. And although the final cost of the project was $1.7 billion - $350 million over the original budget - the work had to be done. "Record cargo volumes are coming in and out of our port each year," U.S. Senator Bob Menendez said at the rededication. "After decades of effort, we have solidified our port as an engine for economic growth and jobs for the region and the nation."  

 

- Terese Loeb Kreuzer  

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Letter to the Editor

IN MEMORY OF BPC RESIDENT, MARILYN GAULL HOWARD

To the editor:

I regretfully write to say that dear Marilyn passed away on Wednesday, Aug. 14, following a courageous, 12-year battle with cancer.

Marilyn remained her feisty, defiant, engaging self until close to the end. True to her modest, Quaker nature, she asked that no memorial or other service be held for her, so I will only note, for anyone unfamiliar, that Marilyn was a brilliant scholar who taught at many fine universities (William and Mary, Temple University, New York University, Boston University), and published widely on many weighty scholarly subjects.  Among other things, she was the founder of the The Wordsworth Circle, a journal of Romantic studies, which lives on. (Marilyn focused much of her waning energy on ensuring its successful transition to new leadership.)  She was also active in community causes here in Battery Park City, particularly post-9/11, which is how I came to make her acquaintance. In her final decade, Marilyn's greatest joy came from her work with colleagues and students at the Editorial Institute and the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association, which brought her much happiness and fulfillment. In recent years, she was also a globe-trotting lecturer on matters large and small. The end was very sudden, while Marilyn still had much left to offer the world, and was cruel and unfair.  She drew strength from the kind messages and visits from those of you who knew of her illness.  

Marilyn is survived by her daughter Rachael.

John Dellaportas
Marilyn's Friend and Neighbor

From the editor:

A woman who loved William Wordsworth would certainly have known these lines from his poem, The Excursion:

And when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory images and precious thoughts
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.

We welcome letters to the editor. We reserve the right to edit them for clarity and length. Email them to editor@downtownpostnyc.com

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Editor: Terese Loeb Kreuzer

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