Results tagged “whitestonebridge”

Traffic on the Whitestone Bridge is back running smoothly after an accident yesterday shut it down for most of the afternoon when an overhead sign collapsed and blocked all five lanes of traffic in both directions. The sign and its metal support system, the gantry, came down around 1 p.m. when an MTA Bridges and Tunnels contractor struck it with their truck and the crane attached to its back.

Around 1:30 p.m., an MTA construction truck struck a sign on the Whitestone Bridge, causing it to collapse onto the expressway. Two workers who had been on the truck were injured; a spokesperson told CityRoom one had a head injury and the other a broken leg. WCBS 2 reports, "The large green exit sign could be seen split in half on the bridge. The boom truck, which had been stationed up ahead, did not appear to have suffered significant damage." Traffic was shut down in all lanes so the scene could be cleared; drivers are being redirected to the Throgs Neck.

Another pot farm bites the dust: A small fire in Queens led the Fire Department to over 200 marijuana plants growing inside a home.

Some police officers' routine patrolling became a big pot bust yesterday. Cops from the 105th Precinct smelled a pungent odor coming from a home on 269th Street in Floral Park and, once they got a search warrant, found a bumper crop of marijuana. There were more than 300 marijuana plants, growing lights, and 10 lawn bags of marijuana in the process of being dried. Three men, ages 23 to 48, were arrested and face drug possession charges.

The MTA Bridge and Tunnel police noticed that a truck had an "unstable load" and asked the driver to pull over yesterday. Inside the rig, the cops discovered 210 pounds of marijuana.

A totally wild carjacking unfolded yesterday across two boroughs. A man stole an orange Range Rover SUV at a Queens car wash, and then tried to run over a cop who stopped him at the Whitestone Bridge in the Bronx. The SUV's owner David Irish had called the police when his car was stolen from the car wash, so authorities were on the look out.

This story has a bit of everything: fantastic views of the East River and the Long Island Sound, golf, the mob, methane gas, Giuliani, toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, and nearly 1.5 million cubic yards of dirt being dumped by the terrifically named New York Dirt company.

Gothamist loves the NY Times article about the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge being too fat, because for a moment, we thought, "Hey, that's not nice, calling a bridge fat!" But then it was actually an interesting (and a little scary) look at how the suspension bridge is being re-engineered, with new technology and materials, to make sure it can support the traffic in the future. For instance, Robert Moses had engineers add concrete to the bridge; to stop the swaying (even though it was still safe), and in order for drivers to perceive it was stable, cables were added, which some people have felt ruined the skyline.