NYACK – Rockland residents will have to wait a couple of more months to get an up-close look of the new Tappan Zee Bridge getting built.
Construction crews this week will begin mobilizing equipment at Memorial Park in Nyack to build a new fishing pier that will house the viewing area.
The 90-foot-long by 30-foot-wide pier should be ready by mid-June, Nyack Village Administrator Jim Politi said.
The observation area at the end of the pier will feature several information panels about the $3.9 billion replacement project and the equipment being used. High-powered telescopes will provide an intimate look at what promises to be an extremely busy construction season.
While the official viewing site in Tarrytown’s RiverWalk Park opened last October, Nyack has run into problems that have led to delays.
Village officials had hoped the rebuilt pier would be ready to open last December.
“It took us three tries to find someone to put the pilings in,” Politi said of the project’s critical foundational element.
Politi said larger companies were too busy and perhaps the work was viewed as too small but all that bidding and rebidding added weeks, if not months, to the $200,000 rebuild of an old fishing pier, which received $150,000 from the state and $50,000 in Tappan Zee community fund money.
Soon after pile driving began at end of August, the project ran into another snag.
Crews installing the 40-foot-long wood piles hit a concrete barge buried along the shore.
“We had to figure out how to get through that,” Politi said.
Nyack Mayor Jen Laird-White turned to the state Thruway Authority for advice, and Tony Canale, one of the geotechnical engineers hired for the Tappan Zee project, helped come up with a solution. Canale lives in Yonkers and teaches a graduate course on foundation engineering at Manhattan College.
“We were happy to utilize some the world-class engineering expertise on the New NY Bridge project to help the village of Nyack with their new fishing pier,” said Brian Conybeare, adviser to Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the project.
With the piles now all in, the custom-made deck, wood railings, tables, benches, lighting and Tappan Zee-related materials remain to be installed.
Politi estimates that work will take the contractor, Ingannamorte and Sons of Tenalfy, N.J., six to eight weeks to complete.
By early summer, he said visitors and Tappan Zee watchers will have a place to “fish or sit and relax” with a “wonderful view” of the rising bridge.
Conybeare said the viewing platform will offer residents “a first-hand look at the historic project unfolding on the Hudson River right in their backyard.”
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If you go
The Westchester viewing platform for Tappan Zee Bridge construction is located at Scenic Hudson RiverWalk Park, 157 W. Main St., Tarrytown.