Convention Footbridge

Depending on how you look at it, the Republican National Convention could be a good thing, because it has helped get the Post Office cleared out, what with the building of the footbridge over Eight Avenue. The footbridge allows journalists to access the Convention floor at Madison Square Garden from the media's rooms at the Farley Post Office, and Republican National Convention folks are crowing that the convention is what helped jumpstart the Post Office to actually clear out the space, after Penn Station officials' lack of success to move in getting in there; of course, Penn Station officials say the timeline for moving into the Post Office has been on track. Oh, brother. Gothamist will just think about how a developer for the huge project of putting Penn Staion into the Post Office building is to be announced in January or about the footbridge, which, for 15 days of work, $1 million, and 30 tons of metal ("diamondbraced steel truss system"), looks fairly sturdy. But $1 million, spanning 110 feet (or is it 180?), only gets you a vinyl tarp for enclose-ment.

New York Magazine also looks at the footbridge versus the rest of the city's bridges in a handy table. The Verrazano-Narrows the 7th longest bridge in the world; the convention footbridge is longer than the Staple Street footbridge.