After 6000 mile trip crane arrives in New York to rebuild Tappan Zee Bridge

 

image credit details, top image Chad Rachman, bottom AP, Jersey Journal

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Tappan Zee Bridge map in relation to the Bronx

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1/30/14, "‘I Lift New York’ crane ends 6,000-mile trip to rebuild Tappan Zee Bridge," NY Post, Rebecca Harshbarger

"A massive crane that will build the new Tappan Zee Bridge arrived in New York Harbor and passed the Statue of Liberty Thursday morning after a 6,000-mile odyssey from California to the Panama Canal.

Originally called the Left Coast Lifter, it has now been christened the I Lift New York.

The floating crane can lift up to 1,750 tons, and replaced part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the largest public infrastructure project in California’s history.

It left Oakland Harbor for New York on Dec. 21, and was pulled by two tug boats along California, Mexico, and Central America. It passed through the Panama Canal on Jan. 15
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The crane is now on its way to a Port Authority facility in Jersey City, according to a Thruway Authority spokesman.

The crane will tear down the existing Tappan Zee Bridge, and then help build the new bridge’s structure and foundation.

It is expected to shorten construction time, and cut costs in building because it is so powerful.

“The Lift New York super crane can lift the equivalent of twelve Statues of Liberty at once,” said Governor Cuomo in a statement today. “And its ability to lift huge modular components of the new bridge into place and to help dismantle the old bridge will reduce construction time by months and reduce project costs by millions of dollars.”" image Chad Rachman
 
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1/30/14, "Monster Crane Building Tappan Zee Finally Arrives in NY," AP, Tarrytown, NY, via hamodia.com

"Two months after leaving San Francisco, a huge floating crane longer than a football field arrived Thursday along the Hudson River where it will be used to build the new $3.9 billion Tappan Zee Bridge.

The 400-foot-long Left Coast Lifter departed from the West Coast in December on a 6,000-mile voyage to New York. The crane traveled down through the Panama Canal, across the Gulf of Mexico, up the East Coast and through New York Harbor.

The “Left Coast Lifter,” nicknamed “I Lift NY,” one of the world’s largest, can lift 1,750 metric tons, or 12 times the weight of the Statue of Liberty. It will also be used to demolish the existing bridge." image caption, "The 400-foot long monster crane makes its way along the Hudson River on its way to port Thursday in Jersey City, N.J. (AP Photo/The Jersey Journal, Reena Rose Sibayan)"

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6/26/12, "Faulting a Plan to Replace the Scorned Tappan Zee," NY Times, Peter Applebome

"It was unloved from the start, built on the cheap, located improbably at the broadest stretch of the Hudson River, its improvised design derided by its own engineers as “one of the ugliest bridges in the East.” 

Almost everything about the Tappan Zee Bridge has been criticized since it opened in 1955 — its congestion, its safety, its narrow lanes, substandard design and unfortunate history of suicides — though Gov. Thomas E. Dewey did defend its location on the grounds that it was outside the range of an atomic bomb falling on New York City and thus the only bridge likely to survive an attack. 

Now, after more than a decade of delay and inaction, the state seems on the verge of building a new and significantly upgraded Tappan Zee, a project that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other proponents said would produce tens of thousands of construction jobs, improve commutes for frustrated drivers and replace the George Costanza of New York bridges with a successor twice its size in one of the largest construction projects in state history. 

Alas, the bridge may end up better, but there has been no more love for this project."...

Tappan Zee Bridge photo above from NY Times, 6/26/12

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