Break out the Vodka and Caviar!

Dig that Olivetti!

Well, now that we've solved the BQE repair/replacement crisis, it remains only to name the new bridge. BQE Bypass is a bit utilitarian for such a grand (and grandiose) project. And we've used up Revolutionary War-era Polish Generals with mustards named after them. How about a poet?

The Joseph Brodsky Bridge has a nice ring to it. And it's appropriate. After his forced emigration from the Soviet Union in 1972, Brodsky lived for many years and died (in 1996 at 55) in an apartment in Brooklyn Heights (splitting his time between New York and Mount Holyoke, Mass.). How would the poet, sentenced to five years of hard labor for "social parasitism," feel about a bridge modeled on one in Siberia? Well, Brodsky did his 18 months of hard labor in arctic Archangelsk. More importantly, he had a great Slavic sense of irony, so I think he'd be just fine with it.

Witness, "Admonition," a poem from 1987:

when you shudder at how infinitesimally small you are,

remember: space that appears to need nothing does

crave, as a matter of fact, an outside gaze,

a criterion of emptiness—of its depth and scope.

And it's only you who can do the job.

Yes, I think Brodsky Bridge would suit him well.

It's a shame that A Room and a Half, the brilliant and moving film about Brodsky by Russian director and animator Andrey Khrzhanovsky is not available on DVD in the States. In it, Khrzhanovsky mashes up Brodsky's memoirs of his early life in Saint Petersburg with animations of Brodsky's drawings, many of the beloved family cat. You can at least enjoy a few minutes of the trailer here.

Siberian Solution

Trolls' Paradise

We're agreed then. The solution to the BQE problem in Brooklyn is a new bridge carrying the roadway out over Gowanus Bay. Local traffic can use the existing travel lanes, which will be a lot easier to repair with so much less volume. But what kind of bridge?

Here's our first candidate. The Atlantic Road (right) in Norway, an 8.3 kilometer stretch that connects the island of Averøy with the mainland and Romsdalshalvøya. It hops from island to island with eight separate bridges. Looks like something out of J.R.R. Tolkein. Beautiful, but I don't think it can handle the volume of traffic our new BQE Bypass demands.

Don't try this in Red Hook!

For that, I'd suggest something on the order of the bridge over the Yenesei River in the Krasnoyarsk, Siberia (left). You may have seen it in the gorgeous photo in Friday's New York Times of a member of the amateur winter bathing club of Krasnoyarsk taking a dip in -15 degree temps. It's only 2.3 km long but you can easily image it stretching much farther as the need be. Built in the early part of the last century, it still works. The arches are high enough to allow for the New York Harbor traffic.

Krasnovark - City of Light

The slightly blurry photo from Kelly Paras's blog below gives an idea of what it would like at night. Yes, I think it will suit New York nicely. Now we just need a name. (I don't think "Kommunaly Bridge" will go over too well, even in New York, that hotbed of European Socialism.)


  

Outward and Upward!

The BQE is falling apart. The sections that work least well and are the hardest to fix are the ones that cut through Downtown Brooklyn, under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and through Cobble Hill, aka, "the Trench." So, what do you do when you need to replace a major highway that runs through a densely populated urban environment? You can go under it, but that's expensive and messy. You can go over it, but I doubt Brooklynites would welcome a seven- or eight-mile Pulaski Skyway-like elevated highway. That only leaves the Providence Solution: Go Around It!

Back in the 1980s, the Rhode Island DOT was faced with doing something about the section of I-195 that ran through Downtown Providence, Fox Point, and over the Providence River into East Providence. Built in the 1950s, it was designed to carry an estimated 75,000 vehicles a day and was handling more than 160,000. Plus, it had hazardous curves and closely space exits. Sound familiar? The RIDOT considered doing a major overhaul of the existing roadway or replacing it with a new section. They went with the latter, constructing a new stretch of road and bridge over the Providence River beyond the hurricane barrier, which had been built following the devastating 1956 hurricane. In other words, they went around the problem. That map above shows the recently reopened 1-195. The brown patches indicate where the old highway once rocked through downtown Providence and the East Side.


We can do the same. Imagine driving west (towards Staten Island) on the BQE, reaching Downtown Brooklyn and having the choice of staying on the local road or taking the [to be named] Bridge. If you choose the bridge, you are lifted gently above the new waterside park, over Gowanus Bay, and gradually reconnected with the existing expressway somewhere in Sunset Park. There might even be a buses only exit to Governors Island. Essentially, we'd be following the blue line on this map of BQE replacement/repair options--except what is proposed here is an "outboard tunnel" between Greenpoint and Sunset Park.

What are we groundhogs? We need a bridge not another tunnel. Something that will not only solve a major traffic problem but contribute to the majesty of New York City's built environment. Tomorrow, I'll offer some possible models for such a monumental under(over)taking.

The Providence-Krasnoyarsk Connector

Photo by Dave Watts

You may be wondering, with some justification, what this modest 1982 photograph from Providence, Rhode Island, has to do with the BQE. Fair question. But before we get to the answer, we need to define the problem. As a recent article in The New York Times dramatized (with some great quotes, by the way), the BQE is in desperate need of rehabilitation, repair, or replacement. But, given the budget woes in Albany and New York City, the DOT has announced that, for the foreseeable future, it will get only small-scale repairs on an as-needed basis.

I drive on this?

As the Times story details, the BQE was built for much less traffic than it (mis)handles today. The lanes through Downtown Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights are just 10 1/2 feet wide rather than the now standard 12 feet. Apparently, our automobiles, like ourselves, were smaller in those days. The State is even canceling a study for the replacement for the section of the expressway that passes under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade on two cantilevered levels (shown during construction at right).

Alright, I understand money is as tight as Mitt Romney's smile. But damn it, I stand with Newt on this. Now is not the time to shy from grandiose (and verb-i-ose) projects, the kind that made this country great. In future posts, we'll travel to Providence and, yes, to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia (where they can see Sarah Palin's megalomania from their houses) to propose a solution to the BQE problem in keeping with the spirit of American Exceptionalism instead of Obama-esqque Acceptdefeatism.

Chulita Te Amo

Woody Woodside

I blathered in this space recently about subway staircase equity on the 7 train drawing the contrast between the 46th Street Station's 6 stairways to the street and 82 Street's 3. But there is at least one way 82nd St. has it all over 46th St. They've got some stained glass windows from 1999 by Yumi Heo. Heo hum... We've got Kate!

"In physical terms, I'm cuter than you..."

If you can't quite make it out on the poster, the commentary in red reads, "Chulita te amo," ("I love you, little sexy one"). And we do. I probably won't see Underworld Awakening but it does make me want to get out my copy of The Last Days of Disco (from 1998!). Here's Kate's character, Charlotte, with Alice (Chloe Sevigny) dancing in the greatest disco the world was ever privileged to see. Oh, Kate, what did we do to deserve you?

Metaphysical Movers

In case the BQE isn't tight enough for you

Everybody's good at something. This moving company specializes in dissembling furniture to get it into tight places. A fine occupation. In Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, Policeman MacCruiskeen, as a hobby, fashions a series of ornate wooden chests, each new one small enough to fit within the last one. As he goes on, he requires instruments increasingly small (decreasingly large?), until he is working with ones so small they are literally invisible.

These might be just the guys I need to deconstruct that war-surplus Libyan squash court I bought on line and reconstruct it in my basement storage  bin. (Here's a couple minutes of Ramy Ashour and Ryan Cuskelly from a Tournament of Champions match, now on, at Grand Central. NB: One of these players is not your BTB correspondent. And neither is the other.)

What Kind of Monster Are You?

Back in November 1994, a young(er) Newt Gingrich was orchestrating "The Contract With (On) America" and leading the Republicans to a massive midterm takeover of Congress. Less than a month later, in a divey bowling alley-cum-music venue in Chicago, Slant 6 were telling our future (in 1 min. 48 secs.):
Your fangs are beginning to show now
I think I've really got to go now
Don't look at me that way
I'm really scared because...
What kind of monster are you?


What kind of monster is Newt? Leave out the personal stuff, and you've still got a racist (and race-baiting), homophobe, huckster, lobbying, lying sack of sugar--beet or cane, your choice. A sort of cross of Melville's Confidence Man, Shakespeare's Iago and Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. Please, Newt, show us how to become a "thrifty working class"!

(This post requested by My Fair Isle.)