Report - Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges - New York City - 2012

[m9]

The hit list for my little trip across the pond was pretty varied, and we managed to get a fair amount of stuff done. Steel mills to drains to skyscrapers to subway to parties on half sunk boats. All well and good, but the main event, in my mind, were New York's bridges. Our original plan also included the Brooklyn Bridge and the HellGate bridges, the former having to be aborted due to workers and the insane number of cops on the bridge due to the MayDay protests and the latter due to simple time constraints. This isn't to say the two remaining obvious candidates, the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges were chill by any account. As well as the MayDay protests upping the already huge NYPD presence in the city, it was bin Laden's death anniversary and so the whole city was on tenterhooks, terrified of some kind of terrible terrifying terrorist terror attack.

Despite all of this, we still thought it'd be a good idea to crim it up over the East River, and some how managed to avoid the new high tech helicopter, numerous foot patrols and getting called in by the good citizens of Brooklyn. Good job as well, you don't just get nicked in NY, you get absolutely fucked. Rikers Island wasn't something I was too up to be honest, so this only really left us a few hours window when the city that never sleeps was having a quick nap...


The Manhattan Bridge
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From wiki..

The Manhattan was the last of the three suspension bridges built across the lower East River, following the Brooklyn and the Williamsburg bridges. The bridge was opened to traffic on December 31, 1909 and was designed by Leon Moisseiff, who later designed the infamous original Tacoma Narrows Bridge that opened and collapsed in 1940. It has four vehicle lanes on the upper level (split between two roadways). The lower level has three lanes, four subway tracks, a walkway and a bikeway. The upper level, originally used for streetcars, has two lanes in each direction, and the lower level is one-way and has three lanes in peak direction. It once carried New York State Route 27 and later was planned to carry Interstate 478. No tolls are charged for motor vehicles to use the Manhattan Bridge.

We hit this one first, myself leading up the superstructure trying to spend as little time in front of the camera as possible, darting up on the first platform and then acceding to the saddle room at the top.

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and then on out the hatch

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With a bit of monkeying and sqeezing around inside, I managed to end up in the blue orbs at the top.. Sweet!

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After a successful decent, it was time for the next trick...

Williamsburg Bridge


from wiki..

Construction on the bridge, the second to cross this river, began in 1896, with Leffert L. Buck as chief engineer, Henry Hornbostel as architect and Holton D. Robinson as assistant engineer, and the bridge opened on December 19, 1903 at a cost of $24,200,000. At the time it was constructed, the Williamsburg Bridge set the record for the longest suspension bridge span on Earth. The record fell in 1924, when the Bear Mountain Bridge was completed.
It is an unconventional structure, as suspension bridges go; though the main span hangs from cables in the usual manner, the side spans leading to the approaches are supported by trusswork, drawing no support from the cables above. The main span of the bridge is 1,600 feet (490 m) long. The entire bridge is 7,308 feet (2,227 m) long between cable anchor terminals, and the deck is 118 feet (36 m) wide. The height at the center of the bridge is 135 feet (41 m) and each tower is 335 feet (102 m); these measurements taken from the river's surface at high water mark.

It was starting to get a bit light and we'd had to bail the day before for exactly this reason so we could't really hang about. We'd reccied her the day previous and know exactly what our plan was, so as soon as we got to our on-point we were away. Up past the guard rails and onto the X beams. The shady part about the W is having to deal with the awkward corner climbs of the beams 80 foot above the freeway the passes over the bridge. Fuck this up and the Freightliners should finish off anything that the fall doesn't... That said, the W is a bit more chill than the M and if you can make it to the section when the maintenance staircase starts, you're away.

A grand total of 0 deaths later and we were at the top in the saddle room.

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Dawn was approaching quick, so snappy snappy and down we went. Just as we were coming down, the sky started flashing with lightning, and was followed by an insane thunder storm fresh in from the Atlantic. The climb down was slippy as hell but the rain did wonders in keeping the 5am strollers on the W's eyes nicely tucked under their umbrellas.

Proper stuff. Thanks to Moe and Witek for the tips and GE for being sensible when sense was required..


Oh - and if think this is even bordering on good, try this for size
www.sexonbridges.com