NEW YORK — A prefabricated 350-foot-long bridge that will replace a 109-year-old span across the Harlem River arrived Monday aboard two barges.
The 2,400-ton swing bridge passed under the Brooklyn Bridge at 8 a.m., on its way to its home, just south of the old Willis Avenue Bridge. The new bridge will be tied up to the shoreline until it is installed, beginning in two weeks. The city Department of Transportation hopes to have traffic rolling across the span in November.
The new bridge connecting Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx will replace aspan that opened in 1901 and carries more than 70,000 vehicles a day. The existing Willis Avenue Bridge will remain open to traffic as the new span is floated into place atop foundations and piers.
The new bridge was built for the transportation department at a port in Coeymans, near Albany. Two weeks ago, a marine transportation crew loaded the finished span onto the barges that were welded together for the 130-mile trip down the Hudson River to a dock in Bayonne, N.J.
On Monday, the span was hauled from Bayonne 15 miles north through the East River to its final destination.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 07/27/2010