Heads Turn as a Bridge Floats By

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. — Kent Waddell started his day Tuesday by heading to the Hudson River with his bloodworms and fishing rod. But he saw something on the river that made him race home and put his fishing gear away.

It’s not every day you see a huge steel bridge floating down the Hudson,” said Mr. Waddell, 69, a retired engineer from West Hurley, N.Y., who had ambled down a woodsy path to the Saugerties Lighthouse, on the west shore of the Hudson, just as a prefabricated steel bridge about 350 feet long, 65 feet high and 77 feet wide was slipping downriver, propped on huge barges guided by three powerful tugboats.

Its eventual destination is the Harlem River in New York City, to replace the nearly 110-year-old Willis Avenue Bridge linking Manhattan and the South Bronx. This was a crucial day in a decade-long, $612 million project, but for Mr. Waddell, it simply meant the chase was on. He spent the rest of the day hopping in and out of his car and chasing the slow-moving bridge down the river.

Most onlookers seemed to know bits and pieces of the story of the 2,400-ton bridge’s construction and transport, which they spoke of in language reserved for things like the Empire State Building and the great water tunnels

And like Mr. Waddell, there were hordes of onlookers along the Hudson’s shores, tipped off to this bridge-on-a-barge spectacle by local newspapers and word of mouth. Mr. Waddell joined them at vantage points like the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge and the Walkway Over the Hudson footbridge park in Poughkeepsie, to monitor the progress of the bridge getting a pristine promenading down nearly the entire length of the navigable Hudson, as if to give the people of New York State a sneak preview of what New York City residents would be driving on.

The trip seemed almost ceremonial, as people gathered on bridges and in waterfront parks, gawking at the structure.

“It’s great to see real industry happening again on the Hudson,” Mr. Waddell declared while snapping picture after picture of this cog of urban infrastructure.