Squibb Bridge to Brooklyn Bridge Park busted indefinitely

September 24, 2018 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The $4.1 million Squibb Bridge connecting Brooklyn Heights to Brooklyn Bridge Park will be closed indefinitely. The bridge was barricaded after an inspection revealed a piece of wood was in “poor condition.” Photo by Mary Frost

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The formerly bouncy Squibb Bridge connecting Brooklyn Heights to Brooklyn Bridge Park will be closed indefinitely, according to Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The bridge was barricaded shut in July after an inspection revealed a piece of wood was in “poor condition.”

In a statement, the park said that testing had identified “additional members of wood with higher than expected moisture levels, which have compromised the condition and quality of the wood. We are working diligently with our engineers to design the appropriate solution to reopen the bridge as soon as possible.”

No timeline has been set for repairs, the park said.

“Unfortunately, the bridge will need to remain closed during design development, which will determine the associated timeline for repairs. We will continue to provide updates on our progress,” the park said.

This is not the first time the popular wooden walkway has been closed for repairs since it opened in March 2013. The 450-foot-long, $4.1 million wooden bridge, which bounced noticeably when people walked along it, was shut down in August 2014 when the cables supporting it began to sag and the wooden walkway tilted south.

In January 2016, BBP hired global engineering firm Arup to plan and oversee repairs. The bridge, officially an “underslung suspension timber bridge,” finally reopened in April 2017 — without much of its trademark bounce.

Litigation with the initial designers, the firm HNTB Corporation, was settled just this year. HNTB is headed by MacArthur Genius Grant-winner Ted Zoli.

In April 2017, David Mills, director of Gardiner & Theobald, which manages all the park’s capital projects, said the bridge had an expected 25- to 30-year life cycle, and maintenance would be ongoing with yearly inspection.