Squibb Park Bridge Bounces Back

Squibb Park Bridge, the bouncy, wooden pedestrian walkway that connects Brooklyn Heights to Brooklyn Bridge Park opened to much fanfare in March 2013, only to shut down in August 2014 due to structural problems.

Though an official date has not yet been set, the bridge remains “on track for a spring reopening,” James Yolles, a spokesperson for Brooklyn Bridge Park confirmed to BKLYNER last week.

The Park enlisted the engineering firm Arup to redesign and oversee repairs to the $4 million, 450-foot-long bridge, Yolles said, getting it back in safe, usable condition.

With repairs now complete, Park officials took a test walk last week, and are currently waiting on an inspection and approval to reopen the bridge to the public, Brooklyn Paper reports.

Designed by 2009 MacArthur Fellow Ted Zoli, an engineer at HNTB, the bridge zig-zags over the BQE. In 2016, Brooklyn Bridge Park took Zoli and his firm to court in a $6 million law suit over “faulty design,” according to Brownstoner.

The costly repairs to the pricey bridge ran upwards of $3 million, according to Brooklyn Paper.

As Joanne Witty, a Vice Chair of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and author of Brooklyn Bridge Park: A Dying Waterfront Transformed, told BKLYNER earlier this year—

“It’s going to reopen this spring. It’s been totally reengineered and it won’t be quite as bouncy but I think the bridge is so quintessential…where else can you walk down this crazy bridge that zigs and zags and moves around?”