The Douglaston, NY Trail: "The Bridge" Traditional Geocache
New York Admin: Regrettably there has been no response from the cache owner placing me in a position where I must archive this cache. Caches archived by a reviewer or HQ staff for lack of maintenance or failure to respond can not be unarchived.
The Douglaston, NY Trail: "The Bridge"
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The Throgs Neck Bridge is a suspension bridge opened on January 11, 1961, which carries Interstate 295 over the East River where it meets the Long Island Sound. Douglaston is a very nice neighborhood. The caching series in this neighborhood is a great walk all year round. Great Views! Park on the side streets, if you drive. Make the left onto the side street. *PLEASE PARK ON THE SIDE STREET. IT IS SAFER!* This is a park n' grab. Cache is a magnetic key holder.
The bridge connects the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx with the Bay Terrace section of Queens. It is the newest bridge across the East River and was built to relieve traffic on the adjacent Whitestone Bridge which opened in 1939. The Throgs Neck Bridge was planned and managed by Robert Moses. His first plan for a Throgs Neck span dates back to 1945, six years after his last project, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, was completed two miles (3 km) to the west. This bridge was one of the few not intended for the Belt System of highways wrapping around Queens and Brooklyn. Moses commissioned famed New York City bridge designer Othmar Ammann. Ammann was the man behind the George Washington, Bronx-Whitestone, Verrazano-Narrows, and Triborough Bridges. This was Ammann's first long span job after 1940, which saw the collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows Suspension Bridge in Washington State. Instead of employing a rather streamlined-looking plate-girder system, Ammann constructed his bridge with 28-foot (8.5 m) deep stiffening trusses under the deck. These would weight the bridge and allow any wind to simply blow through, instead of against, the bridge. Ammann designed the bridge with long, curved approaches (increasing the length of the roadway) in order to allow for water traffic beneath the span. The shores of Bay Terrace and Throggs Neck are rather low, so to build a bridge right over the water without approaches would leave almost no clearance under the bridge. Deck-raising began at each tower until crews met at the center, extending out to the approach viaducts. The span is 1,800 feet (549 m) long, with an anchorage to anchorage total length of 2,910 feet (887 m). The bridge was designed without non-motorized access of any kind. There are also no regularly scheduled buses. During planning, the bridge received the I-495 designation. During construction, the bridge became a part of I-78. Not until 1971 did the Throgs Neck Bridge become a part of I-295. Late in the 20th century the area underneath the Queens approaches became Little Bay Park. On Friday July 10, 2009 at about 5:00 a.m., a construction worker's blow torch sparked a three-alarm fire on the bridge during maintenance work to replace the deck.[3][4] The fire closed the bridge for much of the day, sending traffic in both directions to the nearby Whitestone Bridge. Approximately 140 firefighters were needed to put out the fire, which lasted at least seven hours, and was fought from the scaffolding below the deck and from boats on the water. Traffic lanes on the Queens-bound side of the bridge reopened in the afternoon before the evening rush hour, but only two Bronx-bound lanes were reopened later in the evening. The third lane remained closed due to repair work for exactly a month when it reopened on August 10. As of January 11, 2011, the Throgs Neck Bridge celebrated its fiftieth year of operation. The Throgs Neck Bridge is owned by the City of New York and operated by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, an affiliate agency of the MTA.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
thneq envy