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Photo Gallery: Woodhaven Blvd || |
| Checking out Broad Channel Bridge from below, we're looking south. The biggest danger to lampposts up there is from the weather rather than the traffic and the hodgepodge of trussed uplift masted poles along with standard issue untrussed eliptical mast poles shows that life can indeed be hazardous for stanchions placed in the path of violent unchecked winds. |
| Glancing eastward, we find the swingbridge ferrying the not-so-dead Rockaway line half way across Jamaica Bay. A similar structure will bring it from Broad Channel to the Rockaways. |
  The Broad
Channel Bridge walkways have these unobstructed ledges on the
approach grades. They disappear while the bridge crosses center
span. Here we find a couple of the people leaving goodies strewn
about for the seagulls.I guess they're discarding anything they
suspect of carrying Mad Fish disease. Above, two classic examples
of the type of trussed uplift curved mastarms that graced the
entire length of Cross Bay/Woodhaven between the demise of the
cast irons and the early 60's invasion of the far cheaper quarterloop
uplift masts. These two twinlampers are lighting up a stairway
leadning down to the fishing pier, as well as the northbound
bridge lanes and walkway. Another unsung NYC fixture are these
logs that I assume are set up for troubled boaters to lasso themselves
onto, and given the choppy seas that afternoon, these logs, if
that be their purpose, might well have been put to use. |
| Something definitely not getting much use that day was the bridge itself. Threatening skies had kept the usual Rockaway bound crowd closer to home. As you can see, whatever poles are knocked down are definitely not being killed by cars. They are all well situated behind three barriers: concrete median, cyclone fence and another retaining wall. The fence is apparently to shield passerby sensibilities from the unsettling sight of dead and dying fish writhing on the ground behind the anglers casting lines over the side. By the way, make no mistake; this is still very much Cross Bay Blvd and this bridge is purhaps the only overpass with its own name. |
© 2001, Jeff Saltzman.
