UPADTE: 4/17/17—At long last, Brooklyn Bridge Park’s bouncy Squibb Park Bridge will reopen this Wednesday at 10 a.m., albeit with a significantly reduced bounce, the New York Times reports. In total, the bridge was closed for 32 months (almost twice the amount of time it was open) and repair work cost $2.5 million, in addition to the $4.1 million spent building the bridge.
International engineering firm Arup was brought on to make the repairs, and the Times reporter described the changes as feeling more like a vibration than a bounce. Though people have spent more time without it than with it, the bridge still provides a shortcut between Brooklyn Heights and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s whimsical Squibb Park Bridge is on track to reopen this spring. Repairs on the span are finally complete, three years and one lawsuit later, Brooklyn Paper notes. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation is awaiting a notice of completion from the city, which once received will allow pedestrians to traverse the span between the waterfront park and Brooklyn Height Promenade once more.
The bouncy bridge has been plagued from the get-go. The saga, per our previous coverage:
The span first opened in 2013, connecting Squibb Park at the top of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Designed by Ted Zoli of HNTB Corporation, the bridge was always intended to have some bounce to it. But in August 2014, the troubles began: the bridge was determined to be just a little too bouncy, and was shuttered until it could be repaired, for what was supposed to be about $700,000.
What exactly had gone wrong was a matter of debate. Was it a misalignment issue? Were the problems due to the construction of Pierhouse, a development rising up on both sides of the walkway? In any case, steps were taken to correct the problem—no pun intended—but the bridge remained closed.
After the correction, the aggrieved Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation filed a $3 million lawsuit against HNTB for poor execution of a flawed design. To oversee repairs, BBPC replaced HNTB with the Arup Group. The new estimated cost of getting the bridge up and running again: $500,000.
To make things a little bit worse, Pierhouse construction workers accidentally hit the bridge with a truck in May [2016], damaging some cables. Those repairs will cost another $790,000, though the Pierhouse team will be covering the cost.
The Brooklyn Bridge Park’s board approved a repair budget of $3.12 million in October 2016. (The bridge cost about $2 million to construct in the first place.) It’s been closed so long that most pedestrians have learned to live without it, but its reopening is still welcome. “That bridge would change my life, “ one of its users told Brooklyn Paper, “It did when it was open.”
- Back in Bridge-ness! Squibb Park Bridge ready to reopen! [Brooklyn Paper via Brownstoner]
- Brooklyn Walkway to Reopen, With Less Bounce in Your Steps [NYT]
- Squibb Park Bridge will cost $3.12M to fix once and for all [Curbed]
- Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Squibb Park Bridge Is Finally Getting Fixed [Curbed]
- Bouncy Squibb Park Bridge Closed For Being Too Bouncy [Curbed]
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