Bridge Construction on the Arthur Kill: the Goethals Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing, 1927-1928 скачать в хорошем качестве

Bridge Construction on the Arthur Kill: the Goethals Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing, 1927-1928

There wasn't much catalog information at the MIRC for this film, just "Bridge Construction, late 1927 or early 1928." I have identified the bridges in the film as the Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing, two bridges across the Arthur Kill, the waterway that separates Staten Island from New Jersey. They were built simultaneously to similar designs and opened on the same day--June 29, 1928. As with many of the Movietone outtake reels at the MIRC, the shots were in near-random order. A lot of what I have done here was to try to sort them out. There appears to have been at least two shooting dates, one a cold, grey day and the other a sunnier, warmer one. The occasion of the second one appears to have been the "topping out" of the Outerbridge Crossing--the placement of the last two beams at the middle of the bridge. Cantilever bridges are built out, unsupported, until they meet in the middle, so the placement of the final beams joining them is a significant event. As with all old films of construction projects, the lack of safety equipment such as hard hats and safety lines seems remarkable to us. Even back then, though, the cameramen seemed to recognize the unusualness of workers' seeming nonchalance as they walk across narrow steel beams over a hundred of feet in the air. The film is silent, so I have added a music track of Roy Harris's Piano Sonata, Opus 1, which premiered the same year as these bridges opened to traffic. A replacement Goethals Bridge opened in 2017, and demolition of the original bridge started in early 2018. The Outerbridge Crossing is still in service 90 years later.