The Manhattan Bridge is about to undergo yet another rehabilitation project.

Last week, the city’s Department of Transportation awarded the $75.9 million contract to Skanska, which will perform structural restoration of the 109-year-old East River crossing.

As reported one year ago, this latest round of action is part of ongoing rehabilitation efforts that began way back in 1982. In fact, this is the fifteenth such project since then. The city identified certain “red flag issues” to ameliorate. Plans call for replacing corroded steel, replacing the rosettes ringing the four decorative globes (some of which are falling into the East River), installing new cornices, swapping out the deteriorated brackets (there are 10 on each tower), rehabbing trench drains on the roadway, and repairing the south walkway fence that is more than a century old.

The rehab begins this fall and is set to last until (at least) 2021.

The Manhattan Bridge is the youngest of the three East River suspension bridges. Designed by Leon Moisseiff and completed in 1909, the span carries approximately 400,000 daily commuters – 80,363 vehicles and 316,500 mass transit riders – between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The bridge supports seven lanes of vehicular traffic as well as the tracks utilized by four different subway lines. It measures 6,000 feet across, from abutment to abutment.