The design for the new Tappan Zee Bridge was selected just last winter, and work is already underway to build the new roadway across the Hudson River in Rockland and Westchester Counties. While the chosen design?which also happened to be the cheapest design?was the most-liked by Curbed readers, one Bloomberg's archicritic feels quite the opposite. Thus we bring you the first ever Rhyme Time With James Russell poetic put down:
Where the gorgeous Hudson Highlands
meet the rock-faced Palisades,
one of the ugliest bridges in America could get built.
A structure crowned by 400-foot-high towers
that look like insect antennae waving aimlessly in the wind.
Towers intended to form an iconic image,
but they are just stumpy.
Curving approaches
could have drawn a long elegant line.
Instead, a hefty bridge deck
Awkward intervals
Flabby piers, heavy crossbeams, knobby ends.
No design intelligence whatever.
A more appealing span
would cost much more
because American road builders
have lost the technical capacity
to build anything not slapped together from catalog parts.
· Ghastly Bridge, Hopeless Rail Plan Leave New York Cheated [Bloomberg]
· Cheapest Proposal Chosen for the New Tappan Zee Bridge [Curbed]
· Tappan Zee Bridge coverage [Curbed]
Loading comments...