6. The Bayonne Bridge Had to be Constructed Without Obstructing the Waterway
As with a lot of infrastructure, new bridges and buildings often are required to be constructed without preventing existing movement. Like the demolition of Penn Station, where not one day of train traffic was disrupted, the Bayonne Bridge had to be constructed without obstructing the Kill Van Kull, the shipping channel between Staten Island and New Jersey.
To do so, the engineers created a temporary support system with hydraulic jacks. As the Port Authority writes, “Sections of the truss cantilevered over the support system as the arch grew to its connecting point.” The trusses were pre-fabricated off site. To give perspective, most bridge up to that point were built using a support system that mirrors the exact curve of the future bridge.