Checking in on the Kosciuszko Bridge project, in Today’s Post.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Several progress reports have been offered on the NYS DOT’s Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project. I seem to be the only person In New York paying any attention to the project, and there’s been a series of prior posts on the bridge presented at this – your Newtown Pentacle – chronicling the project.

To start – this 2012 post tells you everything you could want to know about Robert Moses, Fiorella LaGuardia, and the origins of the 1939 model Kosciuszko Bridge. Just before construction started, I swept through both the Brooklyn and Queens sides of Newtown Creek in the area I call “DUKBO” – Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp. Here’s a 2014 post, and another, showing what things used to look like on the Brooklyn side, and one dating back to 2010, and 2012 discussing the Queens side – this. Construction started, and this 2014 post offers a look at things. There’s shots from the water of Newtown Creek, in this June 2015 post, and in this September 2015 post, which shows the bridge support towers rising.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

At the end of 2015, I got to visit the work site in Brooklyn with the DOT folks, as described in this post, and this one. I also walked the Queens side back in December. Today’s post contains images from the last weekend of February in 2016, and takes a look at the Queens side, at the border of Blissville and West Maspeth.

In the first shot, I’m exiting an arch at 43rd street which leads to Laurel Hill Blvd., which leads to the spot shown in the second. If these shots look similar to the ones which have been embedded into prior posts, btw, it is quite intentional.

Construction equipment is everywhere at this point. Part of the Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project involves the redesign of the cloverleaf exchange with the Long Island Expressway, and since the bridge plus it’s approaches involve an astounding 2.1 miles of structure – this is one of the biggest capital projects in NYC that’s happened in my lifetime, and certainly a huge moment in the history of my beloved Creek.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The odd spiral walkway over the highway which allows pedestrian and bicycle access (and which is surprisingly well used) is going to be rebuilt as a part of the project as well.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Down on Laurel Hill Blvd., heading south towards Review Avenue and Newtown Creek. Calvary Cemetery is on the right, or west, side of the street. The red brick approach structures on the left are going to be demolished when traffic is rerouted onto the new span.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking east along 54th avenue, which has been closed to traffic.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking south along Laurel Hill Blvd., towards Brooklyn and Newtown Creek, at 54th road.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Poking the lens through a hole in the fence under the current Kosciuszko Bridge, at what used to be the NYPD’s towing impound lot for Queens, but is now the staging area and offices of the DOT. .

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Over on “used to be 43rd street,” and looking in a southwestern direction, you can see the new bridge’s roadway rising alongside the 1939 model.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking west towards Manhattan and Calvary Cemetery at 55th avenue.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There was a lot of activity underway while these shots were captured, with construction workers and union guys moving heavy equipment around and doing all sorts of stuff. Welding, moving cranes about, working with concrete – that sort of thing.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Closer to the Newtown Creek, and looking over the former site of the Phelps Dodge company – a multi acre property deemed too toxic to be used as a parking lot for trucks. An early chemical factory – Nichols, later General Chemical, predated the Phelps Dodge copper refining operation which was once here.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A better view of the Queens side ramp under construction.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking across the Newtown Creek to Brooklyn, where the roadway ramp is nearly finished and the concrete towers which the cable stays that will support the span over the water will be tied up to are practically complete.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Back on Review Avenue/56th road, looking south towards Brooklyn.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Same spot, but looking north towards Sunnyside and Astoria from Review Avenue/56th road.

As a note – this stretch of road, which begins at Borden Avenue – is Review Avenue until the K Bridge, then it becomes 56th road until meeting 56th street whereupon it becomes Rust Street, which it remains until its terminus at Flushing Avenue.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Whatever you want to call it, the engineers of the NYS DOT have spanned the street with a new roadway.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The DOT plan focused attention on the Brooklyn side first, given how densely packed that section of DUKBO was, and how much more work that entailed. The Queens side, which has a lot more “elbow room” was always meant to be handled several months behind it on their schedule.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking back east, from the intersection of Laurel Hill Blvd. and Review Avenue, at the border of LIC’s Blissville and West Maspeth (or Berlin) in Queens’s DUKBO at the fabulous Newtown Creek.

The term “House of Moses” keeps on going through my head whenever I think about this project, incidentally. Every living New Yorker lives in the house that Robert Moses built, after all, and a big chunk of his early work is getting replaced. Luckily, I’m there to get shots of the show.

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